Enrapture
by Reader-chan
Summary: Rose Weasley is excited about being Head Girl. Of course she is. Scorrpius Malfoy is Head Boy. Why does that make her nervous? Follow how a pale boy enraptures a bright girl.
1. Chapter 1

Dear everybody who is reading this,

Hello. I'm back after a ridiculously long hiatus, for which I apologize, but hey, school and University entrances have been killing me for the entirety of the period in which I was unable to write. In short, I have suffered. In light of aforementioned suffering, I hope you find it within yourselves to forgive me... *Bows*

Yet another obscene night hour release...I hope you enjoy it.

* * *

DISCLAIMER: Me no own Harry Potter or Harry Potter characters... otherwise this shit would be canon... TT_TT

* * *

**The Meeting**

_The heads get their own dormitory._

Needless to say, I have reached an unhealthy level of enthusiasm about it. I say bye to mum and dad and finally board the train, I drag my luggage towards the heads compartment and reach it. I pull the door open and begin to drag my trunk inside.

"Need help with that?"

I whip my head around and see Scorpius Malfoy standing behind me with a slightly concerned look. My eyebrows furrow and it takes my mind a few seconds to realize what he's doing there.

"You're Head Boy?" it comes out as more of a question than the statement I intended it to be.

"Yes. Now that we've established that, do you want help with that?" he says in his silky voice.

No, scratch that. I did not think his voice was silky.

"Uh, sure."

So he lumbers past me and pulls the trunk into the compartment and pushes it under the seat like it weighs nothing and sits back down in the opposite berth.

I will not stare at his gorgeous face. Rose Weasley, you are worth so much more than that. Do not stare at him.

I sneak a glance anyway. There, sitting nonchalantly like he owns the place, sits Scorpious Malfoy in his full pale skninned, platinum blonde glory. Scorpius Malfoy who has directed at most twenty words to me since I met him. In fact, this is probably the most I've heard him speak.

"It's rude to stare Rose." It sounds so good when he says it.

"Don't strain yourself." Nice Rose. Make a good impression by picking on him.

"Excuse me?"

"I mean, speaking so many words at once, you know, you must be parched. Let me get you some water in a silver goblet."

He looks at me for a moment in shock and then lets out a chuckle.

God, it's so sexy. Can a chuckle even be classified as sexy…ever?

It is that exact moment that I realized that Scorpius Hyperion Malfoy would be my downfall.

"Clearly we've gotten off to a great start. This will be an interesting year."

"Yeah." I mutter.

This is going to be difficult. And at that moment, the main cause of my excitement just a few minutes earlier hits me. "

_The heads get their own dormitory._

Well fuck… I was screwed.

* * *

AUTHOR'S NOTE: That's that. Will there be more in this? why yes of course. The drama has only just begun. I've put two hormonal seventeen year olds in a confined space...one of whom is a very attractive blonde one at that. I literally have had to tear the Scorpius and Rose in my head apart because of all the snogging they keep doing and of course the different ways they get to that point. I will update very soon. Mainly cause I'm freaking out about them just as much.

Review and tell me if you like it...or if you think it's a piece of shit waste of your time, I'd love to hear from you. Favourite it or follow me if that's your thing.

I hope you have a nice day and if it's night when you're reading this, I hope you have a good day tomorrow

Much Love,

Reader-chan.


	2. Chapter 2

Beloved readers,

I hope you were looking forward to this second installment of "Enrapture". I worked through the night for this(Hint: It's a guilt trip...to be read as PLEASE REVIEW)...

* * *

**DORMITORY**

Scorpius is a perfect gentleman. I am an uncouth outspoken peasant in comparison, really. I decide, it is too late for that and have long since given up on being allowed to drag my own trunk. Scorpius got off and pulled it over his own trolley as he moved along the station.

"We're both going to the same place anyway."

I absolutely, under no condition blush. No not even a little. Ok, maybe a little. It is not my strongest moment, I admit.

So after an awkward briefing by Professor McGonall who explains our privileges and duties, we walk to the dorm that had been the cause of my excitement just this morning. Suddenly, I don't like this idea anymore. I have absolutely no desire to stay confined in small places with him…or large places for that matter.

"What should be the password?"

"Password?"

I look at the painting in that unlocks the door. There is a man wearing a beret, striped t-shirt and black pants as he rearranges his red scarf around his neck standing in front of a canvas painting what appears to be a stiletto. He makes a big show of not looking at us and then he looks up.

"Mademoiselle…" he begins looking at me. "You 'ave to be by far, ze prettiest 'ead Girl I 'ave ever 'ad the pleasure of meeting." he says bowing and I see Scorpius stiffen slightly. I imagined it….right? Of course I imagined it. Scorpius Malfoy, in all his womanizing, gentlemanly, gorgeousness does not give a damn about guys flirting with me, much less paintings.

How about "Nargles?"I ask looking up at Scorpius

"What?"

"I mean it's too stupid for anybody to guess right?"

"I get your point." He replied stiffly.

"So Nargles it is?"

"Yeah."

The painting confirms our password with us and we move into the room.

So remember the excitement I'd felt back in the morning on the train? Yeah it was back. With a passion. The common room was huge, bigger even than my Gryffindor common room and on the two ends are two intricate doors. One of them coloured in red and gold while the other in green and silver. I wonder what they did when both the Heads were from the same house. I picked up my trunk and immediately began dragging it across the room and deposited it behind the door, much faster than I had across the train. This was going to be amazing. The tiny voice of reason in the back of my head mentioned the gorgeous pale boy who would be sleeping next door… it wasn't like I had a chance really.

Scorpius went more for the curvy, overtly pretty kind of girls. I was skinny… too skinny to have any curves and tall, though nowhere near how tall he was. I wasn't extraordinarily pretty. Don't get me wrong, but pretty much my entire life, I've had Lily and Victoire to compare myself with. Lily is tiny, curvy, adorably freckled and perfect. And Victoire..well, I think I kinda lost the battle the moment she decided to be quarter fucking Veela. So, them with their perfect, pretty features and me tall, flat, no freckles, no red hair, one would be dubious about me being a Weasley. It was depressing really.

To be honest, though, I've long since accepted that. It doesn't annoy me like it did back in my third year when boys started becoming important, and well, I kinda went into the background as "one of the guys." I didn't want to be "one of the guys" I wanted to be asked out, courted all of that craziness. It took a lot of reassuring letters from mum to help me get over it. It comes back sometimes, but I treat it with much less importance.

Of course fourth year was very, very different. In fact, I'd say fourth year was my prime in dating. I dated Newt Walters, Thomas Brewater, Hugh McLuggins and Richard Leany. While we're at it, Richard Leany even got into a fight with Rector Smith about me. Honestly, it was probably fourth year that got me over the whole confidence about the universally observed dilemma in females "Do I look good in this dress?"

Then there was Scorpius. If I was proud with my fourth year, his fourth year was worthy of awards. Lucy Pennyquin, Quinn Helrone, Sasha Bylecrose, Rina Edwards, Betty Splince, Petunia Parkinson, Anya Trenply, Teresa Zabini…and so on…the list didn't stop at fourth year, oh no, unlike most of us who stopped dating around random people in fourth year, he continued and is still practicing the art of being a manwhore.

Okay, I might have a bit of a vindictive view of him considering I coughed up the courage to ask him out back in fifth year and he bluntly said he'd rather date a cucumber…a pickled cucumber even. The nerve of that hellish snowman. I do understand why women fall for him so often, yes I'm excluding myself from this rather large group of women because no, I don't like him like that anymore. I'm just very, very attracted to him from time to time.

It is not my fault the Gods bestowed upon him his perfect aristocratic features and his cheekbones that did nothing but make him look even better, his platinum blonde hair and then there were his eyes. Oh God, his grey deep, intense, nerve wracking, blush inducing eyes….you get the message…. And he played a lot of Quidditch. He was bound to have what would most definitely have to be a hot hot body.

Maybe this dorm sharing arrangement wasn't so bad. I could always just sneak into his room asking for some minor favour and then..Bad Rose. No. Ok, this dorm sharing arrangement is not going to work out. I can sense it. I'm going to attack Scorpius and he's going to hex me and then kill me. This is officially going to be a test of self control. I have tons of self control. This is going to be a piece of cake. Like, a rock cake…Shit.

"Rose!"

"What?!"

"Have you checked out the bath arrangement yet?"

"No, why?"

"Oh, just come out."

"Why are you trying to ruin the amazing ambience of this paradise that is our dorm by shouting? Next time, I'll be compelled to-"

"So your password to paradise would be Nargles."

"If you had to guess a password, I'm pretty sure you wouldn't have guessed Nargles."

"While Nargles fascinate me just as much, I ruined your paradise for a reason."

"Which better be worthy of this crap."

"There's one bath."

"What?"

"There is only one bath."

I ran back to my room and checked the attached bathroom. A sink, a toilet…. No shower, no tub…no provision for a bath.

"There's only one bath!" I said running back out to him. I knew this was too good to be true.

"Was I speaking in Goblin thus far?"

"Don't take it personally Scorpius, it's really just your voice…coupled with your face." Yeah, your voice that sends shivers down my spine and your face that really for all intents and purposes should be closer…much closer. Stop, I needed to stop becoming a slut just cause he was hot…like really hot. His hotness would be irrelevant. I was not going to be affected.

He snorted. He actually snorted. In an elegant, Malfoy manner, but he snorted. Ok that's it, enough of nice, attracted to you Rose for you Scorpius.

"Aah, the strain is showing isn't it?"

"What?" he asked in a tired tone

"Talking… it must be difficult when most girls around you don't talk to you much…it's mainly just…"

"Snogging?" he finished for me with a smirk on his face.

"Hmm… it's probably cause you feel having an intelligent conversation will bring out how stupid you really are."

"Well…there's that…and there's also the fact that snogging is much more fun than talking… it's ok, you wouldn't know."

"Nope" I finished with a satisfied tone and a victorious smile on my face.

The confusion that rose to his face was gratifying. You see, more often than not, I got into arguments I had no hope of winning. Now there's two ways to win in such arguments:

1\. Do not get into such arguments and hence by default win. (a.k.a. the sensible win)

2\. Confuse the opponent into believing you won. This is one of the scariest weapons one can wield. When the opponent doesn't know what defeated him but believes that he/she has lost. (a.k.a. "the not really, but haha you lose and I effing win" win)

I am an evil person yes, but he kinda asked for it. To think he thinks I've never been snogged. I ought to tell him about my promiscuous fourth year… not that it was something to be proud of, but it was something. Just cause he'd rather date a pickled cucumber did not mean other men were of similar opinion.

I turned back about to primly walk away from him to further rub in my obvious victory when a hand grabbed my elbow

"So what are we doing about the bath?"

"Taking turns obviously. Or…you could just forego bathing for the year, I most certainly don't plan to do anything of the sort."

He looked at me quietly.

"What else did you expect me to say? Let us apparate to hot springs in Japan cause both of us didn't get separate baths."

"No, I… you're Rose Weasley."

"Very good." I said in the most patronizing voice I could manage.

"I meant you're top of the class and know a hoard of extra spells."

"So?" I said inspecting a fingernail attempting to appear as disinterested as possible in the fact that Scorpius had just praised me.

"I just thought you could…er… conjure a copy of the tub in my room or something..."

"Let me explain something Scor."

"Did you just call me Scor?"

"Did I? Hmm… so anyway Scor…let me make this clear now. I don't work for you. You want the bath to yourself, wake up early…like at five." I said as nonchalant as possible. It's not like I'm thinking of how flattered I am at this no.

"You called me Scor again."

"I thought we covered that."

With a groan of frustration, Scorpius walked towards the bath and looked back at me, "I'm taking a bath."

So there were a few things I'd realized along the arguments thus far.

1\. Teasing Scorpius is almost as much fun as teasing Louis.

2\. I was extremely attracted to Scorpius

3\. I was under no circumstances to act upon this attraction because it was hormones, and because mum and dad, because he would rather date vegetables or even pickled vegetables.

4\. No.3 was going to be kinda difficult.

Ok, so the dorm sharing arrangement was not something I got joy from… but I could.

* * *

AUTHOR'S NOTE-

The next chapter should be out by the end of the week. Aah another chapter down. I really hope you like it. Okay so I'm wondering if the next chapter should be from Scorpius' point of view. tell me if you like the idea or not(Hint: REVIEW!). So, I would love to know your thoughts about this chapter and if you have any requests. Press that button below, It's a fun thing. Trust me.

If you're not the review type, feel free to follow or favourite of that's your thing.

I hope you have a nice day and if you're reading this at night, I hope you have a nice day tomorrow.

Love,

Reader-chan


	3. Chapter 3

Dear everybody,

This chapter is written as Scorpius as the main character. Feel free to ask me any questions about the plot and make requests.

Enjoy

* * *

DISCLAIMER: I don't own Harry Potter.

* * *

**SCORPIUS**

Three weeks into this dorm sharing arrangement, Scorpius Malfoy finds himself frustrated. Potions has always been the subject he has been best at. Even the famous Rose Weasley had been forced to bow down to his prowess in the subject. This potions essay however, was seemingly beyond his understanding. It ticked him off. While he was a brilliant student, he was fiercely competitive with Rose regarding her grades. She had hardly ever even bothered to so much as look at his essays once they were returned after grading. She was completely unaffected.

It ticked him off, not being able to get a girl's attention, that is. It had nothing to do with the fact that Rose Weasley was beautiful with brown smouldering eyes or that she had soft brown curls cascading down her shoulders that his fingers itched to touch or that her long, long legs which she loved showing off in those ridiculously short shorts made it hard for him to breathe. No. He had been over this. He was not going to act on any of this attraction. He was Draco Malfoy's son, Lucius Malfoy's grandson. He was from a Death Eater family and had no right whatsoever to mess around with the kids of the golden trio.

He remembered how just about everybody had shunned him during his First year. It had stung, the rejection of his classmates and then one day, when he'd been summoned by the headmistress Professor McGonall, he'd met the painting of the old headmaster, wearing moon shaped spectacles peering at him. Professor McGonall had been delayed because of some brawl that was taking place among the Fifth years or something, but Professor Dumbledore had advised Scorpius that sometimes, people hated without justification and the only way to stop that would be to do stuff worthy of their admiration, even if only through small acts. When Scorpius had questioned further, the old bearded man had simply replied that he'd have to do a good deal of thinking about it himself.

Of course, with Voldemort dead and Death Eaters disbanded and largely in Azkaban, there was not much he could do worth earning admiration of course. He couldn't equal the great Harry Potter, but perhaps, he could work hard and get good at stuff. Like at Quidditch, which came naturally to him, and at studies at school. So he did just that. It happened slowly, really, but Scorpius saw the perception of the school change towards him. How hushed whispers and murmurs turned into smiles and hellos and soon enough, Scorpius found that he fit in. For the first time, in a long time, Scorpius felt happy.

Rose, however, had had her own contribution to Scorpius coming to where he was. It was back in the beginning of first year, Scorpius had just met with Professor Dumbledore and was starting to get disheartened by the lack of response to his continued efforts. He'd been walking down the corridor, just about to turn when he heard her voice.

"Listen up, you two!"

He serrupticiously leaned across the wall to get a look at what was going on.

"If you two continue picking on Scorpius Malfoy in class, I'm going to report you to James. He's a prefect. Let's see how smart Ravenclaw will look with lesser House points than everybody."

"What?"

"I saw you charm his bag to explode. If you continue such behaviour-"

"Why are you on his side?"

"Because he has done nothing wrong."

"But-but, he's a Malfoy"

"So? You're a McCunningham."

"Rose!"

"Unless he's actually done something worthy of punishment, what exactly are you punishing him for? I'm a Gryffindor. I am going to stand for what's right no matter how brave I have to be and you're Ravenclaws aren't you? Use that intelligence and add two and two. He isn't a Death Eater, regardless of whether his family was or not. Stop picking on him."

The Ravenclaws had looked scandalized and left muttering something about Rose having lost her mind. She sighed and turned. He hadn't moved out of the way fast enough to be unnoticed. She flushed a slight pink and asked, "Uh… how long have you been listening?"

"A few minutes." he'd replied awkwardly, not knowing whether he wanted to thank her or the ground to swallow him.

"Oh."

"Umm… Rose?"

"Yes?"

"Why'd you defend me?"

"Well, I could say it's because you did nothing wrong really, but it's mainly cause… I saw how hard you're trying." She said looking at the floor now, her voice growing smaller as she spoke.

He was taken aback. After a whole fruitless month of trying, this girl, a Weasley no less, was the only one who'd acknowledged that he was no murderous prejudiced pure blood. It felt… really nice.

"Thank you."

"Don't mention it." She smiled at him, her hair whipping around her head as she turned on her heel to leave bringing it to a state of even further disarray. She bagan to walk away and stopped as if remembering to say something and turned around. "Oh, and Scorpius,"

He'd looked up in response.

"Don't give up. You'll get there."

She hadn't become best friends with him after that or anything, but she'd given him an encouraging smile whenever she'd seen him after. By the end of first year, Scorpius finally fit in and Rose, well she drifted apart from him, not that they had ever been close, but he saw less and less of her through second year until finally the connection between them got severed.

Scorpius ran a hand through his blonde hair pushing it out of his face. He stared at the potions essay. Thinking about Rose was not helping him here. But apparently, thinking of Rose has summoned her as he saw the door swing open and she entered, muttering profanities pulling her Quidditch robes off as she moved over the carpet.

Scorpius felt his face heat up. She did this every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Apparently, Selene Wood was an unforgiving captain and worked her team to the bone. Finally, robes pulled off, and in a tank top and shorts that she had been wearing underneath, Rose collapsed on the soft, plush carpet that covered the floor of their Common Room next to his armchair. Scorpius remembers how worried he'd been the first time he'd seen Rose fall like that.

It was a part of a routine. She'd come in, tell him how much she hated Selene and all of Selene's merciless crimes towards her limbs and then refuse to move until she found the energy and attempt to convince Scorpius to get her some water.

"Scorpius…"she groaned. He ignored the way his mind conjured up images of other ways he could make her groan his name… more fun ways that required less self-control.

"Pierre is painting a top hat today."

"Who's Pierre?"

"The man in the painting of course." She said nonchalant. Scorpius scowled at the mention of the flirtatious man in the painting.

"You named him?"

"I named him today morning."

"Why?"

"Everybody should have an identity of their own, but a name is the first part of it don't you think?" she muttered softly still not moving from her sprawled out state on the carpet next to his armchair.

"Yeah." He wondered if Rose did this for everybody. Handing out kindness, smiles and support without any restraints. He looked down at her as she continued to lie face down on the carpet and his eyes softened.

Then she turned her head to the side looking away from him towards the fire, a scowl on her face. He knew what was coming before she even uttered the words.

"Now, let me tell you something about Selene. She is most definitely into cannibalism. You know why?"

A smile easily snaked its way to his face as he looked affectionately down at her. Banter like this, he could handle.

"Pray tell."

"Aah, curious as always. Well if you insist."

She groaned once again as she turned over her side so she looked up facing him. He saw a horrid blue black bruise stretching across her left shoulder and collarbone.

Before he could even think to stop, a worried "Rose" had escaped his lips and he'd immediately pushed his chair back and gotten down on the carpet with her. Why hadn't he seen it before. Merlin, she'd had that bruise for this long and he hadn't even noticed and had been wasting time making small talk with her about Wood's possible cannibalism.

"It's okay Scorpius. I went to Madam Pomfrey already, she said it'll get better overnight. I didn't even have to stay there."

This captured his suspicion. Madam Pomfrey, while a kind woman, was slightly obsessive about her patients. She'd kept him overnight once for a split lip. His eyebrows narrowed as he looked at her. As if realizing his suspicion, Rose launched into her defence.

"It's not even that serious, the broom barely even touched me. It just looks bad because I'm pale and stuff."

He raised a blonde eyebrow and saw her breathe in quickly…

_Get your mind out of the gutter Malfoy_ he said to himself firmly dispelling images of him leaning towards her.

"So if I go meet Madam Pomfrey right now asking for you, she'll tell me you've been released?"

"Yes." Her voice was a bit too confident.

"Ok then, I'll go ask."

"No!" her brown eyes were wide as she covered her mouth with her hands. She looked ridiculously appealing. His fingers itched to push the hair stuck to her long, pale neck away from it just to feel if the skin was as soft as it appeared.

"How'd you get out?"

"…."

"Rose?"

"…."

"Ok, I'm telling her now."

"I climbed out the window."

"What?!"

"I waited for her to leave and when she was in the office, I opened the window and climbed out using the ledges, entered and empty classroom and then came here."

He blinked. For a few moments, he was too surprised to comprehend what she was saying. For a second, he even doubted that she would do something as reckless as… this was Rose he was talking about. She could do just about anything.

"But, her office is on the first floor."

"Yeah, I know." she said clearly not making the connection he had.

"What if you fell?" he whispered, too affected by the possibility of her falling off the first floor simply because she was too impatient to stay overnight at the Hospital Wing.

"I have a good grip."

"Are you bonkers?" his voice rising an octave as he imagined Rose lying in a pool of her own blood because she'd fallen off the first floor.

For a moment Rose was quiet. Then she looked up at him sincerely and said "I'm sorry."

He let out a breath he didn't know he was holding.

"It's ok… just…don't do it again."

"I can't promise you that." Her brown eyes looking up at him quietly and honestly.

For a moment, he felt disheartened, but then, it occurred to him, it was crazy bravery that had attracted his attention more than anything, even back in first year when she'd warded off those bullying Ravenclaws and back in Fifth year when she'd quietly and seriously asked him out. He sighed. Rose was as crazy as she was studious, without it, she wouldn't be her.

"A man can hope can't he." he smiled and looked down at her.

"So now that we've established that I am free from Madam Pomfrey's well-meaning evil clutches, let me tell you about the cannibalism that Selene's planning."

"Of course." He said, his smile growing to a grin.

"Most people don't see it, but me, I have an insight in people you know, like I can read them. For example looking at you I can see quite easily, your resemblance to the Abominable Snowman and hence concur that you like to kill small animals and live in the Himalayas."

"The degree of accuracy of your insight is scary."

"Of course it is. I'm very good at it, yes. Now, Selene, she is sneaky, most people don't see it because she's tiny and inconspicuous looking, but she's a Chaser all the same isn't she? A very good one at it. So you see, Selene's source of incredible stamina and strength is obviously, human flesh."

"Obviously" he repeated in a deadpan.

"Scor, I feel like your interest in this most astonishing discovery is lacking."

"Of course not" he said faking insult. He'd long since given up on getting her to stop calling him Scor at random moments.

"Just checking. Of course you're glued to this tale. So Selene made us not only practice two hours straight, but even made us run around the field. Ten Laps. Have you seen how large they are! Clearly, her only motive is to wear us down until our limbs fall off of their own accord so she can cook and eat them."

"Oh no" he muttered still looking down at her.

"Yes and then she made us fly ten laps of it too… that's when Eric Donovan's broom hit me by the way, and I got this battle scar then." She said pointing to the bruise.

"Oh" his mood soured a bit. She took no care of herself. He'd seen her skip meals every now and then preferring the library to study. Even seen her studying late at night and waking up at six all the same. And judging by her blatant disregard for injuries, she wasn't very careful in general.

It was at that moment Scorpius decided that he would make sure that this boisterous girl took care of herself. He was going to let her keep doing her thing of looking after others of course, but this manic selflessness and general lack of concern for self, he would work to take care of her, for her.

"Now, what troubles are you having with your essay?" she asked looking up at him with a small smile that made his heart flutter.

"What?"

"You're having problems with an essay aren't you?"

"How do you know?"

"When I left, you'd just started the potions essay, judging by the book next to the parchment of course, and when I came back you were still doing it. I'm not going to fake knowing you through and through, but I for one have never seen you spend more than an hour on a potions essay."

For a moment, he sputtered for a better response and realized how very observant she was.

"Yeah."

"So what's bothering you?"

He raised a long arm and easily pulled both the parchment and the textbook from where he was sitting on the floor. Somewhere along the course of Rose's story about Wood's cannibalistic habits, he'd sat down on the carpet.

"This is next week's assignment right? 'The importance of mermaid tears'"

"Yeah."

"Try the chapter on 'Elixirs and Luxe potions'"

He remained seated on the floor as he flipped to the chapter she'd recommended. Within minutes, the answer jumped at him and he nearly jumped.

"Thanks Rose."

"I don't know what you're thanking me for." She said closing her eyes with a small smile.

"But you just-"

"You found the answer, it's to your credit. Now write that essay."

Scorpius stared at her in wonder. How many times did she do things for people and then refuse to take credit making them the hero? Her smile widened though her eyes remained closed and she let out a satisfied sigh through her nose. He realized, this was a part of who Rose was. She enjoyed giving to others joy and help and was stubborn enough to do it no matter what. With a smile of his own, he turned to finish his essay.

About forty five minutes later, when he turned to look at her though, he found that she had already fallen asleep. Letting out a breath and placing a bookmark in the book like she'd told him to last week and explained what a peeve it was to dog ear them, he slowly attempted to wake her up.

"Rose."

"Rose, hey, wake up. You're sleeping on the carpet. Hey!"

When she didn't so much as twitch, he gave up. She must have been so tired. Gently, he looped an arm under her knees and pushed his other one under her back as he hoisted her up. She was quite light. Scorpius scowled looking at her sleeping face thinking of all those times he'd done nothing as she mindlessly skipped her meals. This was going to end now.

When he finally did reach her door, he found that while he could open it, he could not climb the stairs. This must be the same enchantment that prevented boys from getting into girls dormitories in the House common rooms. That would mean she could enter his room anyway right?

"There's never a boring moment with you anyway is there Rose?" he murmured to her sleeping form and moved across the shared common room and moved into his room. He placed her on the bed comfortably. Satisfied with how comfortable she was, he placed the blankets on her and sat down leaning against the bed on the floor. In the throes of whatever dream she had, she muttered something that he didn't understand and looped and arm around his shoulder.

Scorpius immediately regretted letting her sleep that close to the corner. Then he cursed the people who were responsible for the décor of the Heads room for choosing such narrow beds anyway. Scorpius knew why they were narrow…so as to prevent more than one person form…Rose exhaled on his neck, sending sparks of electricity through his body and making the hair on the nape of his neck stand. Scorpius was increasingly aware of her arm going across his shoulders and he literally burned at the contact.

_Stop. Stop before you lose control._

Immediately, Scorpius pulled himself out of her reach, tucked her arm back in the blanket after pushing her further into the bed towards the wall against which the bed was and left as fast as his legs would carry him. Flushed and nervous, Scorpius slept on the couch that night.

* * *

AUTHOR'S NOTE-

Phew. This is the longest chapter thus far.

First of all, I am the upload queen. Literally too fast. I would really love you guys to appreciate it maybe through a review? Press that button below. Do it now... Please? If that's not your thing, feel free to follow or favourite. I'd love any of that. In case you hated it and thought it was shit, still do tell me because constructive criticism is always welcome.

Now, that the review begging is out of the way... Let me tell you guys a little about the next chaper

1\. It exists and is very much in the works.

2\. It will be from Rose's point of view again, I very much missed her while writing Scorpius.

3\. We'll meet ALBUS! yay!

I hope you have a good day and if it's night when you're reading this, I hope you have a good day tomorrow.

Love,

Reader-Chan


	4. Chapter 4

I'm back people. Did you miss me? Many many thank you's and virtual hugs to those who reviewed. You guys keep me going.

So now, with no further wasted time, say hello to the newest installment of enrapture.

* * *

DISCLAIMER: I don't own Harry Potter. *cries*

* * *

**THE FRIEND**

It's been a week since I woke up in Scorpius' bed. I still remember the soft green blanket over me and the addicting smell of Scorpius' cologne or aftershave or whatever the hell it was that he used. Scorpius, on the other hand had been missing all day, until I came back from my classes to find him and some curvy black haired girl making out… rather passionately on the common room couch. I was not and am not not disappointed or jealous. Not even a tiny bit. Whatever resentment I had for the girl was only because I was straight and Scorpius was hot as hell. Nothing deeper than primal hormones.

I'd coughed delicately and suggested that "activities designed to scar the innocence of first years" should be carried out in his room. He'd had the gall to respond that it didn't matter because I was seventeen with a smirk and extremely distracting lips. _Sexy, kissable lips. Do not think about his lips Rose! Slut phase is over!_

So of course I'd been the one mature enough to transfigure the couch into a ribbon and they'd fallen to the floor in a rather unceremonious heap. My righteous laughter, however, was interrupted by an indignant accusation by Tara Rankerd. Let me quote both her and my response:

"Are you six?"

"Psh! I'm seven and a half!"

I'd had the satisfaction of hearing Scorpius laugh at it as Tara glowered at me. Good times. Unlike now. Now was most definitely one of those times one classifies as bad times. Disastrous times, even. I was going to be late for Quidditch practice. I'd gone to the library right after classes to finish my Charms homework, but then of course there'd been the bit where I got engrossed in finishing both Charms and Defence against the Dark Arts in time because Charms got finished earlier than expected and… I'd lost track of time. Selene might actually skin me...while I was alive...and then proceed to kill me.

Damn the fact that I can't apparate within Hogwarts. Breathlessly, I reached a very concerned Pierre, who by the way was painting a rather drab handbag, and gasped out the password. As the door swung open I walked right into a very hard body and almost fell right back but arms shot out and steadied me against a hard chest. I looked up to see Scorpius scowling at me.

I went through a list of things I might have done to be at the receiving end of his displeasure in my head and revised the defence speeches I'd planned. Surely he wasn't going to lecture me about changing the password to 'Scor wuves boys' yesterday. Before I could begin though, he glowered at me and asked, "What is the meaning of this?"

"Well, that would depend on what this elusive 'this' you speak of is, don't you think?" I responded as innocently as possible. Slowly, the fact that I was getting late for Quidditch, and it's quite possibly fatal consequences were starting to lose importance in my thoughts as the feel of his body pressed against mine began to take more importance.

"Why is he here?"

"Again, Scorpius, the general rule about pronouns, at least in conversation is to mention the noun you're replacing them with first."

"Hi Rose, I see you're having a fun time with our Head Boy."

That was not Scorpius' voice. No, in fact that was Albus' voice.

The moment I recognized the voice, I realized why Scorpius was pissed. I leaned around Scorpius, because I don't even reach his shoulders on my toes, the effing pine tree.

"Albus!" I whispered, feeling Scorpius letting go of me.

Now, the thing is, while Albus and I might be very close, him and Scorpius had this long standing rivalry ( read: pseudo enmity-slash-animosity), in Quidditch because really, when have the Slytherin and Gryffindor Quidditch teams gotten along? In the fact that Daisy Summers, the love of Albus' life, as he called her, was infatuated with Scorpius and Scorpius had yet to acknowledge even a word she directed towards him and now in the fact that I was apparently spending no time with family ( which by the way is such a blatant lie because, while I admittedly spend less time with them now, because N.E.W.T.S, he liked being possessive and blaming Scorpius about it) because I was too busy hanging around the blonde pineapple… that's what Albus called Scorpius.

"Aah, thanks Scorpius for letting go of my sister. Now, I came to tell you, Rose, Quidditch practice has been rescheduled to tomorrow."

"Why?"

"Three members of the team got Dragonpox."

"Oh. I trust they've been captured by Madam Pomfrey."

"Have been for two days now. Will be released tomorrow."

"I'll make sure to visit them then."

"Yeah, yeah…" Albus waved me off.

"How'd you get in?" Scorpius asked standing next to me glaring alternately at Albus who was sprawled over the couch that we'd kind of declared his couch and me. If he was going to suggest I'd told Albus the password, I would hex him. Shit was going to get real. I'd restrained myself, on numerous occasions from blurting out the password to my family, because they wanted to visit. This was the reward of my stunning display of self-control? Suspicion! Fie on you Scorpius!

"I guessed the password." _Thank you Albus._

Scorpius turned to me and glowered, "I told you it was weird and not secure."

"Hey, don't take it out on her, I've been trying to guess it every day since you got the dorm. Pretty neat establishment by the way."_ Thank you again Albus, I'll bake you cookies when we get back home._

"What do you have to say for yourself?" he said stonily looking at me. _The bloody hypocrite._

"I didn't throw a fit when you had Tara over did I? So you had one guest, I have one guest. We're even… ok?" I said holding out my hand indicating truce. I didn't like discussing this, talking about his escapade with Tara stung and I wanted nothing to do with it. This had kind of been an emergency. Suspiciously, I heard Albus chuckle. Wait a minute! Is this what I think it is. My train of thought was unfortunately, interrupted by something. Something, being his large, warm hand... holding mine and moving it for the handshake indicating a stalemate.

I will always maintain that I did not enjoy the feel of his hand on mine. No. I swear I didn't. Ok so maybe I did! Sue me! But I'm pretty has more to do with the fact that he was really attractive and male and not to do with Scorpius as a person.

"Albus, I think you should leave now."

"But, I didn't even get to see your room."

"You can't go there" Scorpius said to Albus.

"Why? Did you buy it?" Albus said looking extremely proud with himself about the come back. _Idiot_. Raking a hand through my hair I let out a sigh.

"No, because it's charmed like all the other dorms and guys can't go up the dorms meant for girls."

"I don't care what you say-…Oh." He stopped mid retort and l saw a victorious smile spread over Scorpius' face. He looked very good smiling, that Scorpius, even though he was currently the poster boy for smugness.

"Why were you trying to enter my sister's room anyway?"

We both flushed at the insinuation. I recovered first.

"Al, when we were checking out the dorm the first time, we were pretty thorough, so I'd seen his room and he was going to see mine until the stairs pulled a 'You shall not pass'."

"What?"

I forget that Al has no interest in Muggle movies.'

"My dear cousin, while you are obligated to annoy me under the definition of sibling, I would really suggest you don't ask me stupid questions. If you're really interested though, ask me again later. Now, if you don't leave, our dear Head Boy over here will hex you. Well that and you're going to miss Daisy coming out of the library"

"That was a low blow. Rooming with a Slytherin is doing things to you"

"I'm not rooming with him." I said flushing. "Now, Albus, I love you but my patience grows thin, you can leave or be at the receiving end of a well performed Bat Bogey Hex, courtesy me."

I saw Albus jump out and begin moving quickly towards the door in front of which Scorpius and I were standing. Scorpius smirked.

"Oh and Albus," I said in an extremely sweet voice. The fear on his face as he turned was satisfying. He knew something bad always came after that voice.

"If I ever catch you even so much as attempting to break in the Heads Dorm again, I'm going to write a letter to Aunt Ginny about what really happened to the top floor of the Burrow before I cleaned things up for you."

Albus turned pale. "You… you wouldn't…"

"If you don't give me the opportunity, I won't."

He turned to Scorpius, "Listen up you albino cockroach," I heard Scorpius snort in response. "She's dangerous, for your own safety as a fellow male, I'm telling this to you, don't mess with her, she'll find your deepest weaknesses and then hold them over you… for life."

And then, he fled.

I blinked, vaguely proud of how terrified my brother was of me feeling the triumphant smile spread over my face.

"That was...informative" Scorpius said looking down at me.

"No, what's informative is that you don't hate Albus. Hell, you might even be friends with Albus."

I'd always thought him and Albus would be at each other's throats the moment they were left alone, the whole name-calling and Quidditch-team-bashing… of course, Scorpius interrupted my line of thought with a witty-

"Excuse me?"

"So why are you guys acting like you're enemies?"

"We aren't enemies-"

"Then why act like it?"

"If you'd let me finish I was going to say, we aren't friends either."

"I would believe you if I were a troll."

"Could've fooled me…" I would've been offended and given him a hard time about it but right now, I had to figure this Albus and Scorpius friendship-or-is-it-you-shall-never-know-ahaha mystery. Also, he was smiling and it's hard to give anybody who looks like that a hard time while they're smiling, because you know, I was thinking of wiping it off using parts of my body… for example, and I say this solely from a hypothetical point of view, for science-my lips.

"Yeah, well I'm not. So what's with the mystery friendship with my brother?"

"…"

"Are you into Albus…like in a not innocent way?"

I had the pleasure of a light blush dust his cheeks and the indignity on his face….priceless.

"I am not!"

"You can tell me. I hold no prejudice against homosexuals if that's what you're scared about."

"Rose!"

"What?"

"I have had more girlfriends than the number of years in my age."

"Could be a cover up. Really, I totally support you two." I said inspecting a nail.

"Merlin! Rose!"

"I can even help you set up dates. Officiate your wedding when the time comes."

He looked nauseous. I had to hold back a laugh.

"Ok, we're friends."

"So why is it so under the wraps?"

He muttered something that I didn't understand.

"If you're hoping to summon the Kraken by muttering stuff, let me tell you that is the incorrect way. One requires a pentagon drawn on the floor in frog ash and-"

"I didn't want him to get in trouble for being friends with a Malfoy."

I had expected all sorts of answers… stupid ones, not one of a quiet admission of insecurity. I looked up at him and saw how troubled his grey eyes looked. For the first time, I realized how much of a burden he carried on his shoulders. One he'd had no say in choosing, simply been born into. I understood that to some extent. With parents who essentially saved the wizarding world from a crazy bald psychopath obsessed with immortality and of course, his band of crazy fanboys...and fangirls, everybody expected me and my family to be just as extraordinary. Hell, mum expected me to be just as extraordinary.

"Well, for its worth, I think you're an amazing friend."

He looked up from his feet to my face, shocked, his mouth hanging open. That was probably the maximum reaction I'd drawn out of him ever since I'd met him.

"And, if anybody is going to be judging us based on our family and you based on yours, well they matter to me as much as having blast ended skrewts for friends and I couldn't care less about them. For that matter I'm pretty sure Al couldn't care less about it himself."

For the first time in my entire life, I had the good fortune to witness Scorpius Malfoy smile, a real smile, not a grin or a suave smirk as a result of something funny, no, this smile was fuelled simply by raw unabashed happiness. And it was beautiful. The happiness was contagious. I felt my own smile come up on my face and pulled him into a hug. He was pretty stiff for a few before his arms firmly moved to get a grip on my waist and pulled me off my feet so I could reach his shoulders.

The tips of my feet were touching his knees and my arms were tightly around his neck while his face was buried in the crook of my neck. Somewhere, through the haze of blind happiness, it occurred to me that I was hugging Scorpius, in all his attractive, gorgeous, muscular glory. The moment I felt my heart speed up and my skin begin to heat up under his touch, suddenly very aware of his breath on my neck, I realized, this had been a very, very bad idea.

_ABORT! ABORT! Rose under no circumstances are you going to jump him. Do not ruin this happy moment with your horniness._

Evidently, my horniness did not give a damn. I was suddenly dying to both begin kissing that tiny silver of skin under his hair on his neck that I could see and run away from him now before I ruined our tentative friendship.

Fortunately, Scorpius put me down and cut off all contact with my body.

_Breathe in. Breathe out. Do not blush. Breathe normally. This is a highly sensitive mission. Do not mess it up._

"Thank you." he said.

"You're welcome. Now you can always show me how grateful you are by handing over that bottle of firewhisky I heard you confiscated from the fifth years today."

Way to go Rose! Beat one addiction with another! Even Scorpius' attractiveness can't win over alcohol… wait did I just call Scorpius an addiction?

"No, I think I'll show you how grateful I am by not giving you the bottle."

"Sco~or!" I whined.

"No. You have enough unhealthy habits already."

Yeah right!

"Name one...or all of them."

"All right, staying up late, sleeping less than four hours on a frequent basis, skipping meals, addiction to alcohol-"

"I am not addicted to alcohol!"

"Did I not see you last week confiscating a bottle of muggle alcohol from a sixth year and drink all of it in this very common room?"

"You must have been mistaken."

"Yeah and vampires like sunbathing."

Honestly, I was floored by the fact that he'd noticed all of this. I'd always thought that I was inconsequential to him. You know, an annoying amusing person hell bent to be a part of his life. It was, however, much easier to start crap arguments and required much less insight of one's feelings. So I did what I always did, start crap jokes and stupid arguments.

"I'm sure some of them are masochistic enough to like it."

"Rose." He replied blandly.

"Ok, you might be onto something about vampires not liking sunbathing, but unless you know every single vampire on the planet, which I for one, personally, find extremely unlikely, you can't really make that sort of statement."

"Rose, I'm not giving you the firewhisky."

"How about just one glass, a toast?"

"No, I've already handed it over to Professor McGonall"

"Such sacrilege!"

"The argument's over Rose."

"In that case, how about we steal it from her office."

"Rose are you losing your marbles?"

"Think of it as an adventure!"

"No."

"But-"

"No!"

"Scor!"

"Rose I will not be a part of any such stupid plans and I will most certainly not allow you to carry them out."

"Spoilsport" I said accusingly.

"Don't be juvenile."

"I am a juvenile!"

"Because you're seven?"

"And a half!" I said faking insult.

He cracked a smile and began walking back towards his dorm shaking his head. I guess fun time's over. Time to get back to finishing that Defence against the Dark Arts homework. Just as I sat down on my chair and began to open my book, Scorpius' voice interrupted me.

"Rose?"

I looked up at him wordlessly waiting for him to ask me whatever it was that he felt the need to disturb me to ask.

"How'd you know me and Albus are friends?"

"Because I'm a genius." I said looking back down.

He snorted. He actually snorted at my response. The useless pale eucalyptus tree!

"Hey! I resent that!"

"Seriously, Rose, how'd you know?"

"Well, you know Patricia Wormwood? Her you hate, it shows on your face, really. Albus hates her too. Personally, I don't find her to be charming myself, I mean, she's kind of a bitch and I feel our unanimous dislike for her is justified. It shows on his face too. So using her as a sample of looks you give to people you hate, and judging by the way you and Albus interacted, not to mention, Albus gave you advice about avoiding my fearsome wrath, because really, let's face it, I'm pretty scary. I mean, you for one Scor, have not yet had the pleasure of seeing me execute a Bat Bogey hex but I am quite sure you'll have that rare fortune and you will find, it is quite worth its reputation. This one time-"

"Rose!"

"You didn't look like you hated each other, and Albus for one, not only finds the concept of being another person's acquaintance preposterous, but is also, unable to understand it altogether. It's all or nothing with him and if he didn't hate you, you were probably good mates with him. And you're like that too." I said the last sentence in a small voice.

He looked at me mouth slightly open in surprise and eyebrows raised. Abruptly, he looked down and began to turn on his heel when I asked him my question.

"Scorpius?"

He didn't turn but he stopped moving towards his silver-green door.

"Will you ever go public about your friendship with Albus?"

I was surprised by how sincere I sounded… and felt. I actively began ignoring the fact that my heartbeat was fluttering and Merlin! I hoped he'd be alright.

"Maybe one day." and with that, he began walking towards his dorm, door closing before I could ask any more questions.

I was not ridiculously elated about the fact that Scorpius had just confided in me an insecurity he'd harboured since Merlin knows when…right? I was just happy to get an insight in another person. _A very good looking 'another person'_.

Maybe, living in this dorm for the rest of the year, with Scorpius, I could get him to break out of that shell of insecurities that weighed down on him. Maybe, I could help him achieve a peace of mind with himself and maybe, just maybe I could help him realize he was worth so much more than he thought, that the 'Malfoy' surname that held him back was something he could learn to overcome with time, that he was beautiful and worthy of all the friends and love in the world and of course all he had to do to get all of these was to reach out for them and grab them.

Maybe living with Scorpius would let me help him.

_And kiss him._

Aah, horny Rose is back I see, I was beginning to wonder if I was falling ill.

Living with Scorpius was going to be a game of getting over tittering heartbeats, tell-tale attraction and blushes.

I could do that.

Ok, this was going to be difficult. But I'd make it through… if horny Rose would shut up for a few hours at a time.

Ok you're right this was going to be messy.

_Damn._

* * *

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

Oh fricking yes. I wasn't really sure where I wanted this chapter to go until I decided, "When in doubt... Drink."

Now since I am underage(17) , I am denied the right to follow the above postulate. *Damn you youth! How your betrayal stings!* What did you think of Albus? We're going to see more of him and the rest of the Weasley-Potter kids soon #mysterious writer swag.

However, I think it made the chapter lose direction from where I wanted Rose and Scorpius' relationship to move and quite frankly became a bit of a filler type chapter. So I decided to redo it and let Rose suggest the whole doubt-induced-drinking postulate, just didn't allow her to carry it out in practice *high five's Scorpius!* I mean she's supposed to be a role model for the First years! The outrage!

please please please review, it gives me strength to write this over sleep... and we all know of the all powerful strength and pull that sleep has over teenagers... in short, please review. Feel free to type some nice things ( or bad things) in the box below and press that review button. If reviewing really isn't your thing, you can always follow or favourite it. Any of the three make me really happy.

Reviewed/followed/favourited? Thanks a lot! ( Decide the tone depending on whether you did any of the aforementioned or not ;D )

I hope you have a good day and if it's night when you're reading this, I hope you have a good day tomorrow.

Love,

Reader-chan


	5. Chapter 5

Dear everybody,

All right then, I'd give some long winded speech about stuff but this chapter is up and I'd love if you read it.

* * *

DISCLAIMER: I don't own Harry Potter... the pain!

* * *

**THE CRACK**

It had been coming a long time now, with how he'd been bitten by a viciously poisonous snake that was a horcrux during the Second Wizarding War, the fact that he'd been ill for about a year now and of course the fact that he was old. So honestly I had no clue why I had been so shocked, why I'd felt so numb, why it hurt so much all the same, why I'd suddenly felt so, so alone.

My grandfather, Arthur Weasley, had died. I'd gone to the funeral at the Burrow, put on a strong front, barely keeping it on, feeling it crack on the edges. I wouldn't let it break. My family and I had been excused for a week to attend the funeral. It was horrible, and sad and heart-breaking and everything else that hurt. I did not want to be there. I'd wanted to get away.

So after a week, when finally, I was back at Hogwarts, I thought it would hurt less, that it would be easier to breathe, that it wouldn't make me want to collapse, that I'd be able to walk and smile and laugh and run and oh! I wanted it to stop hurting. It wouldn't stop. The pain of his death held me in a suffocating grip and somehow breathing began to hurt. It felt like the silence, the being strong for everyone, waking up in the morning and getting out of bed, going to class all were getting more and more difficult. _I wanted it to stop. _

I wanted to be given permission to cry and scream and lash out until I had no energy left. Why was it expected of me to be strong for Albus and Hugo and Lily and I wanted to be left alone and _please stop hurting_. So I finally began the last ditch coping mechanism. Stop thinking. I buried myself in studying, Quidditch, volunteering to teach first years, paperwork- anything that would make me stop thinking. Well, until Scorpius would finally find me wherever I'd chosen to hide and drag me back to the dorm and tell me to eat or sleep or something equally seemingly menial and for a tiny split second, it would hurt less. It was like breaking the surface of water after struggling to get there and being able to breathe again. It was in those moments, I feel that _I began to heal. _

It was hard, I'd lashed out at Scorpius without reason so many times that I'd lost count. He'd held nothing against me. Simply stood there, waited for me to stop shouting or hitting him and then begin to move me back to Pierre's painting and tell me to get a good night's rest. It had taken me three weeks to finally break. I'd broken down and cried for hours until Scorpius, of course it was Scorpius, found me and I told him everything. That grandpa was the only person in the world who didn't expect me to be amazing, that he was the one person who I felt had blind, limitless faith in me, that he was the only person who assured me that I could do nothing to disappoint him, that he was the only person who'd ever made me feel like I was worth something. And he sat there, with me in his lap holding me close stroking my hair saying that it would be okay and that I was worth so much more than I thought and that he was there and that he'd do everything to be enough for me.

I think it was that moment that it finally began to hurt less. Suddenly, the pain wasn't so insufferable, suffocating, toxic or weighing down on me anymore. Suddenly, it was bearable. For that, more than anything, I was so, so thankful to him. So we sat there, at the edge of the Forbidden Forest at the base of some tree, with him holding me, stopping me from breaking any further and finally, finally fixing me up again. I don't remember when I'd fallen asleep in his arms but I woke up in his bed.

I woke up from a dreamless, satisfying, relaxing sleep. I hadn't slept so soundly in so long. Feeling revitalized and well rested almost felt foreign. A sense of déjà vu hit me as I realized I'd woken up for a second time in his room surrounded by his intoxicating scent. His hand interlaced with mine caught my attention. He'd fallen asleep leaning on the bed sitting cross-legged on the floor. Suddenly I felt guilty for making him sleep in an uncomfortable position like that. I wanted to make no move to remove my hand from his. So I did something I hadn't done in weeks, I did something I wanted to do. I left it there. I got off the bed and crouched on the floor and began my attempts to wake up Scorpius.

"Scorpius!"

He mumbled something in his sleep and made no other move.

"Scorpius!" I said a little louder shaking his shoulder. He groaned and pulled my free arm towards him, effectively, pulling me onto his lap and wrapped his free arm around me leaving our interlaced fingers as they were. Then he resumed sleeping with his head resting on top of mine. Electricity shot through my skin. This was more physical contact than I'd planned and possibly, bad. I was staring at the fair skin of his neck and collarbone.

_You could always begin kissing his neck to wake him up._

That's when I remembered why this had been a bad idea. Horny Rose is still alive and kicking I see. I was beginning to worry something had happened to you. As thoughts of kissing Scorpius in different ways in different places began to cloud my thoughts, I realized, now was a very, very good time to get away from him… before I began molesting him. With one of my hands interlaced with his and the other being trapped in such a position that the only place it could reach being his stomach, I went for the kill.

"SCORPIUS!"I shouted punching him lightly in the stomach. His eyes flew open as he sat straight up, his arms momentarily tightening around me before he woke up enough to realize what he was doing and immediately, his arms dropped to his sides, leaving me on his lap, his face blushing furiously. This has got to be the cutest thing I've ever seen. I got off of him and stood up feeling a smile come to my face.

"Morning."

"Rose, I, er-"

"I realize, that I'm good looking and all but-"

"I am so sorry." He said, looking down at the floor, his face still flushed.

"I mean really Scor I ge-"

He looked up so fast I thought he'd crack his neck. His intense grey eyes boring into mine, the surprise evident on his face.

"Did you just call me Scor?"

"Did I?" I replied looking around the room nonchalantly. For a moment, he just gaped at me, apparently too shocked by the fact that I'd called him 'Scor'. To be honest, I'd missed saying that and teasing him. So before this became a feelings fest, I continued.

"Like I was saying Scor, I understand I'm breath-takingly beautiful and all that bu-oof"

Scorpius had jumped up from the floor and was currently holding me tightly in an embrace, pulling me off the floor like he had the last time. It was liberating.

"Thank Merlin." He whispered into my neck as I rubbed soothing circles into his back.

"Yeah" I whispered back.

"So you're ok?" he said pulling back a bit, with me still about a foot in the air, held in place by his arms around my waist, which by the way I was very, very acutely aware of.

"I'll get there."

He smiled. His brilliant, heart-stopping, beautiful smile. I suddenly wanted to be as close to him as possible. I wanted to be as far from him as possible. This was not good. My heartbeat speeding up, the tell-tale blush heating my cheeks, all that I could barely handle and now, here he was attacking me with his smile and how is any straight teenaged girl supposed to resist that?

Think on your feet Rose! Never mind that they're a foot off the ground because of two incredibly strong hands holding you off the floor that belong to an angelic looking creature who is smiling at you. I wonder if this is how guys felt about Veelas.

"Want to get breakfast?" Yes! Yes, breakfast is good. Breakfast is not attractive and nice to you in times of emotional distress.

"It's three in the morning."

"What?" I looked over his shoulder at the clock on his wall… 3:03.

"Are you hungry?" he asked looking down at me as he put me down.

"Yeah."

"We could always go to the kitchens."

"Sure." Kitchens meant food. Yes, food was good.

-TWO MONTHS LATER-

Summer is officially the best season ever. It was warm and fun and…did I mention warm, because it's warm. That's the general drill of course. This year, Mother Nature was in a bit of a "hahahah! Screw you all!" sort of a mood, clearly, considering it was blisteringly hot. Quidditch practice, particularly, became torturous. Why you ask? Of course you wouldn't know! How stupid of me not to elaborate! I'll give you two words:

Selene Wood.

Selene Wood was losing it. Three hour training sessions in the sun, regardless of the fact that we were getting baked alive. I mean, who cares if your skin has become seventy two shades darker, I mean, you're not sunburnt or anything! It's just because you're pale! _The woman was possessed_. She continued, despite threats of painful, drawn out murder, pleas of mercy and of course my very appealing offers of bribery to make us work to the bone in the hellish conditions of the Quidditch pitch. Literally, because duh! Our skin was going to melt off any second now.

So you can imagine, my fury as I walked back to my dorm, because any other form of locomotion (besides crawling, which was ruled out because even the stone floor of Hogwarts were the same temperature as the surface of the sun) demanded too much energy. Pierre! You amazingly beautiful painting, you!

"Rose! Bonjur! You are looking…er…fantastique as always!"

"I've seen trolls prettier than me." I muttered remembering my reflection at the changing room. He was painting an umbrella. _Nice_ _Pierre, dig it in_. I wish I had one of those while flying. I said the password and entered the dorm. Scorpius, was there, looking perfect as always, not a drop of sweat on him, because really, who sweats in a cooling charm cooled room of perfection. I of course, did what I always did after Quidditch practice.

I pulled the Quidditch robes off, crawled near his chair and allowed myself to collapse face first into the cool, soft carpet.

"Scorpius."

"I see you're back."

"Do you know what Pierre is painting?"

"An umbrella, I saw him before entering."

"Before entering? Where'd you go? Paperwork? Albus? Hot date? Not that Albus and hot date have to be mutually exclusive." I said looking at him with a sly smirk on my face.

"No, except I would rather date that Parkinson girl again rather than touch Albus." He said, there was a rather good looking smirk on his own face too.

"That's rough."

"It's the truth."

"If he's defensive, he meant it."

"What?"

"I just made that up."

"….." Scorpius kind of gave up about that argument at that point. Fortunately, I had other examples of my endless wit and analytical case studies to regale him.

"I was wrong about her."

"Who?"

"Selene Wood, of course. She's a fury."

"You mean, she's feeling fury?" he interrupted, his tone confused. _Wizards!_

"They're supposed to be working under Hades in hell according to Muggle Greek mythology."

"Of course."

"Now, Scor, stop interrupting me."

"My apologies." The smug white hippogriff!

"I understand. My theories are so rarely wrong, that you for one, Scor, are finding it impossible to comprehend. You have to understand, I too am only human though. So, furies, obviously, operate at optimal power in hell. With the current temperature being the exact same as that of hell, one finds themselves wondering how anyone could have enough strength to so much as fly for three minutes, much less three hours. I mean, come on, hell isn't exactly designed to be a comfortable environment. So, the only possible explanation for how she managed to not just practice Quidditch, but subject us to the very same torture, Furies are good at torture, by the way, is that she, herself is a fury."

"Your insight always leaves me speechless."

"Of course it does. It's brilliant."

"Absolutely."

"So now, that we've covered the whole discussion regarding Selene Wood's species of origin, will you get up?"

"If you get me some water, I'll consider it."

"Seriously Rose, get up, it's literally right there on your table."

"It is too hot."

"Not here."

"I can still feel my body sizzling from the flames of hell. I am unfit to move, not to mention, how heartless of you to make someone with a partly cooked body move."

"You're alive aren't you?"

"Just barely!"

"Rose!"

I flipped over so I was on my back and looking up at him now. I pulled my tank top up just a bit showing him the paler skin of my stomach for him to compare with my arms and face.

"Proof of my suffering. Feel my pain! Find it within yourself to sympathize enough for me and bring me the water."

I saw something strange flicker in his eyes. For a moment, he stared at the silver of skin I was showing him until abruptly, he sighed, "Oh Rose..." and got up from his chair and began making his way towards my table, where he'd kept a water jug and a goblet. I felt chills down my spine remembering his voice sighing my name. He had such a hot, masculine voice. Within seconds, however, he was in front of me, crouching near my head filling the goblet with water and placing both the jug and goblet next to me. This close, I noticed, he looked rather tanned himself. Him being as pale as he was, the sun must bother him even more than me. He had Quidditch practice tomorrow. Involuntarily, my eyes shut as he held my hand and placed the cool water filled goblet in my hand.

"Here."

"Thanks."

With that, he got up and went back to his table and resumed writing whatever it was that he had been writing. After a few seconds I summoned the energy to get up and pushed myself of the floor, careful not to drop any of the water. After drinking about a jug-full of water, I finally got up, groaning as my muscles protested at the movement and started walking back to my room. _Where was it? It was in the drawer right?_ After a bit of searching I found it. Sunscreen. I had three bottles of them. Don't judge me I'm pale. Picking up one of the sealed bottles I hobbled back to the common room and reached Scorpius' desk. Placing a hand on his shoulder I leaned over him to put the sunscreen bottle on his desk.

"Here."

He picked the bottle up studying it.

"What is it?"

"Sunscreen."

"Why are you giving it to me?"

"Protects your skin from the sun. Considering how pale you are, I thought, it'd help. It's easier than rubbing on the sunburn healing mixture each time, and much more effective anyway. Apply it the same way you apply the sunburn healing mixture, except you apply it before you go out in the sun to face the hellish weather that Mother Nature has bestowed upon us this year."

With a soft smile on his face, he turned to look at me.

"Thank you."

"Don't mention it" I said getting up from leaning off of him and walked back to my room, my entire body tingling.

It took me a week of convincing (requesting), persistent convincing (threatening) and very persistent convincing (blackmailing) to get Scorpius to eat with us, us being my entire hoard of cousins. I even got Albus to admit how he struck up an unlikely friendship with him all the way back in first year and that they were best mates. Albus even cussed Scorpius out about how troublesome the whole don't tell anybody thing had been. When I asked them why they faked the enmity, I found that the rivalry had always been there between the two; that was just their equation with each other. After that, Albus just stopped giving a damn about hiding their friendship and I took to hanging out with him too.

If Scorpius had considered me an indifferent wild child, Albus was, like mafia level with his wild child decisions. So it's not very surprising that on Saturday night, as me and Scorpius were walking back to Pierre at two in the morning, we happened to be…for lack of a better set of words to describe it, inebriated…er under the influence of alcohol... unable to use our faculties…and such. In short, we were ready for a disaster to go down.

We were drunk. Admittedly, the odds were not in our favour. I mean, when you make Rose Weasley mildly attracted to someone, Rose Weasley generally almost always flirts her way into some stolen kisses with that person. Here, we had a person I was extremely attracted to, someone extremely good looking, who had told me he was off limits. In my drunken haze, that made him even more attractive. So the moment we reached Pierre's painting, and he finally began to move his hand from my waist, that he'd placed there to help me walk, I acted.

Scorpius was too tall for me to kiss on my own, even on my toes, so I did the next best thing. I grabbed a hold of his lapels and pulled him down just enough so I could reach his neck on my toes…with my lips. And with that, began a series of mistakes that can only be described chronologically and accurately as:

Mistake #1: Kissing Scorpius Malfoy's neck.

Mistake #2: letting his arm go back around my waist and pull me closer and sigh out "Rose" in his sexy, husky, masculine voice.

Result of Mistake 1 and 2: All hell went lose.

Rose Weasley Life Tip: Don't get drunk around Scorpius.

Because a few moments into my lips acquainting themselves with his neck and his searing hands saying their own hello to my waist, Scorpius snapped and pushed me back against the wall. His grey eyes stared into mine, darkened and with what I was pretty sure was desire, before looking down to my lips.

"You should kiss me." I probably slurred while saying that.

"I would really like that." He said leaning closer to my ear, his voice dropping to a husky whisper.

"So kiss me."

"You're drunk Rose. I won't take advantage of you like that." He responded eyebrows furrowed, pulling slightly away from me. It sounded to me like he really didn't care, like he really would rather kiss me. _Damn your hot gentlemanly ways Scorpius! _It was around this time that my drunk brain came up with this little piece of gold.

"You're drunk too."

"Yeah."

"So, let _me_ take advantage of _you_."

With that infallible logic, I looped my arms behind Scorpius' neck pulling him down and standing on my toes until our lips met. It was searing and electrifying. One of his hands pulled my hips closer to him as one of them began moving up to my hair angling my face to reach him better. His touch was intoxicating, much more than the strongest Firewhisky could ever hope to be. In that moment, as Scorpius'lips moved with mine, for the first time in my seventeen years of bein alive, the world disappeared around me. There was only Scorpius and me and how his lips and hands were leaving me gasping and reaching for more. I finally pulled away to breathe, vaguely annoyed at the fact that I needed to breathe, while his lips left burning kisses on my neck, with my arms entangled in his hair.

Somewhere between his lips on my neck and me craning my neck upwards so he could get more skin to kiss, the world began to lurch. I pushed him away just for a second…and then everything went black.

When I woke up on Sunday, a headache pounding through my skull, reminding me how getting shot in the head would probably be more comfortable than my current condition. It took me about a minute to realize where I was. Slowly, my tortured mind began taking in details and making the connections. I was in in the common room, next to the fireplace where we'd put the cooling charm, now that it was summer. It took me another good minute to realize that there was a warm, muscular body lying next to me, an arm extended from this body and looped around my waist. With mammoth amounts of effort and sheer stubbornness, I forced myself to turn around.

For a few seconds, my head hurt too much from moving and I squeezed my eyes shut. Finally, I opened them looking at a pale, blonde boy, whose gorgeous grey eyes were just beginning to open. I squinted looking at him until I recognized him._ Scorpius?_ Recognition began to flash in his eyes too, and then his eyes widened as he immediately recoiled and pulled his arm back and turned, too fast clearly, because instantly his eyes closed and his face contorted into a grimace.

_Oh Shit! _

_Oh Shit! Oh Shit! Oh Shit! Oh Shit! Oh Shit! Oh Shit!_

Ok, how had playing three drinking games in a row had seemed like a good idea. I looked down, painfully raising my head enough to check if I had my clothes on and then turned to check for his. While we were both dishevelled, clothes had remained on. I let out a sigh and slowly put my head back down.

"Stop making so much noise Rose!" Scorpius' voice blared in my head making my head pound even more.

I had absolutely no memory of getting back to the dorm.

"Do you remember how we got here?" I whispered, because any louder would crack my skull open.

"No, I barely remember leaving the party" he whispered back groaning as he cracked his eyes open and focused on me.

"You have a hickey." He whispered looking away from me.

It took my brain about half a minute to understand that. I groaned as comprehension dawned on me. I turned to look at him to ask him how bad it was when I saw a darkened patch of skin on the base of his own neck, just under the collar that looked like it had suffered the abuse of prying hands permanently disfiguring it. If my head wasn't hurting so bad, I would've laughed at us.

"You too."

"What?" he said turning back, both of us wincing at how loud he was.

"Shut up" I hissed back at him.

It took me about fifteen minutes of lying and groaning on the floor to finally work up the nerve to walk to my room and find the bottle of hangover curing potion. Devised by Uncle George himself, drink a tablespoon and it guaranteed to cure the hangover, even the worst kind within a maximum of two minutes. I went back out into the common room looking for the spoon on the snacks table, and immediately on its discovery, put it to good use to measure the potion and drank it. I felt better immediately, the pain beginning to lift off of my head as I picked a fresh spoon and moved towards Scorpius. After administering the most amazing potion known to man to Scorpius, I moved back to put the potion back in its drawer.

When I got out of the room, Scorpius had gotten up, clearly feeling much better. I sat down in my armchair as primly as I could in an extremely rumpled dress that had a very short hemline. _Ok! I admit I'd been trying to subconciously seduce Scorpius! Sue me!_ and indicated to him that he should do the same. His sitting down elegantly, was, well, a lot more elegant.

"I told you this was a bad idea." He began pointing an accusing finger at me.

"Yeah well, that's not what I remember you saying when we were at the party."

"Yeah? Well I'm sure I said something bad about it after the party!"

"I don't remember what you said after the party."

"I don't either."

"You think Pierre knows anything?"

"I'll go ask him."

Scorpius followed me as I surreptitiously opened the door and peeked out to check if anyone else was there. Finding the coast clear, I moved out barefoot, unmindful of the warm stone floor courtesy summer.

"Pierre!"

"Eep!" he shouted turning around and covering his eyes.

"What the-" Scorpius muttered next to me.

"Are you going two to kiss again?" he shouted into the painting. _What do you mean kiss again?_

"What?" I said looking back at Pierre.

"Do not play innocent avec moi. I saw you two yesterday night. Very French! Was zat ze joke?"

"Pierre!" _What the hell did we do yesterday?_

"What?" he replied still not turning.

"We were really drunk last night. We're sorry if we hurt you. We don't remember anything of last night."

"Drunk?" Pierre asked finally turning around.

"Yeah." Scorpius and I muttered in unison.

"Zat explains it. You two, umm, you were being very passionate yesterday, pushing each other over the wall and my painting…well… you two were kissing rather interestedly, but then ze blonde one 'ad to carry you in, because...I think you fainted."

Ok rooming with Scorpius, I had decided was going to be about me not jumping him. How the hell had things gotten so out of hand?

_Well you could always jump him anyway._

I was too panicked to shout at the voice in my head to shut up.

_Maybe rooming with Scorpius was going to be fun._

But what was really horrifying was the fact that we'd crossed a line. Our tenative friendship, the fact that he'd helped me get over grandpa's death, that I had come to rely on him to support me on some subconcious level, I'd ruined it all. But I needed him there. He picked me up when I fell and though I fell rarely, I usually fell face first and hard. How was I ever going to fix this crack in our perfect, controlled relationship? What if I lost him because of something stupid like this?

I paled, said the password and ran to my room.

* * *

AUTHOR'S NOTE-

First of all, All hail the upload queen... a.k.a. me.

Second of all: HOLY MERLIN THEY KISSED! *fangirling :D* What does it matter that they didn't remember it. I'm sure Pierre's description made them want to renew their *poker face* memories... They should kiss again... for science.

Know that the above statement has pretty much no foreshadowing of the future chapters, it is just my response to the above chapter...which is by far, my favourite... even though I brutally murdered Arthur Weasley to bring Scorpius and Rose together... I'm sorry Mr. Weasley *ugly sobbing* _what have I done?!_

This is the longest chapter by far. Am I the only one who thinks the chapters keep getting longer? No, must be my imagination.

What'd you think of this chapter? Are you a 'Too soon' or 'Amen, those two needed to get it out of their system'? Personally, I'm somewhere in between. But, I wanted to keep things moving. Not to mention because I started out angsty on this one, I felt the need to balance with fluff and humour.

Please, please, please, please review. It gives me strength! and happiness. Now if reviewing is not your thing, you can always favourite or follow. Whatever floats your boat.

Questions to readers:

1\. The next chapter will be from Scorpius' point of view.

2\. What sort of a response do you see Rose having to finding out about the kiss and how would you like it to impact their relationship?

would you like to see in the Scorpius-Rose relationship the next few chapters?

Finally, I hope you're having a good day and if you're reading this at night, I hope you have a good day tomorrow.

Love,

Reader-chan.


	6. Chapter 6

Dearest Readers,

I am so excited to hear your thoughts on this chapter. So, in typical Reader-chan style, in the middle of the night, I am sending out my newest chapter. Without further ado, the chapter.

* * *

DISCLAIMER: I, unfortunately, don't own Harry Potter.

* * *

**THE INVITATION**

After a week of dancing around each other, my friendship with Scorpius finally, went back to the old, familiar, banter-and-laughter relationship it had been before…well…the kiss. The one time I would ever get to kiss the hottest guy ever and my brain doesn't even have the decency to remember it. Just my luck. _You could always…refresh that memory._ Bugger off! Because I was a paranoid idiot and of course, because I wanted to clarify everything, I was going to talk to him about the kiss. I wanted nothing to do with it, quite frankly, but, it had to be cleared and I would clear it.

Own it Rose! You're the clear-things-up-queen! Be the clear-up.

No, I was not the clear things up queen. I avoided confrontation whenever it involved me, I think the last time I'd had one was back in fifth year and that was because some stupid third year guy had been picking on Lily about having big…er…a rather muscular…chest. Well, who's laughing now? Of course that line of thoughts led to a tangent of thoughts about my own…chest region. I live a sad life.

After moping about my chest for exactly, two minutes, _LIES_, I remembered the line of thought that had bought me there. Scorpius. Kiss. Right.

So before I could overthink this, and more importantly, go back to drawing comparisons between Lily and my proportions, I marched out of my room.

"Scorpius!"

"What?" he shouted back from his room.

"I have something to discuss with you."

I heard him come down the steps of his dorm as I stood outside his door. He peeked out of the door his hair ruffled and Holy Merlin!_ He was so hot like that. Why did he ever comb his hair?_

"Heads Duties?"

"Umm… yeah." _What! No! Be the confrontation, Rose! You're the queen of confrontation!_

What no I wasn't! How the hell was I going to go to that tangent anyway! He was being responsible and sexy and messy haired and…

This was such a bad idea!

_No, it's a great idea. You should discuss kissing and then kiss him, because, you're comprehensive like that Rose._

Rose, stop thinking about assaulting him.

"Ok, give me a minute, I'll put on a shirt and we can set up the Prefect's timetable."

I felt my jaw drop open as he closed the door. Followed by my face flushing and an onslaught of images of Scorpius without a shirt. I was not prepared for this. What the hell Scorpius? Are you trying to get me to jump you? I had not prepared for this.

ABORT! MISSION FAILED!

No mission is failed on Rose Weasley's watch. I could do this. Hell, I'd own this. So I literally ran to the 'Discussion Table' as we'd named it and sat where I always did. Now the Discussion Table was a round table and had twelve narrow seats placed extremely close to each other. Generally Scorpius and I sat opposite to each other. Seconds later, Scorpius came out of his door, sadly, wearing a shirt, as he jogged over to the table and sat down right next to me!

What the hell! Unexpected course of events! ABORT! ACTIVATE EMERGENCY!

Shut up voice in my head! I under no circumstances enjoyed his addicting aftershave-slash-cologne-slash-aerosol-aphrodasiac-laced-perfume! No, because I'm responsible and ignored the fact that his left arm was touching my right arm and I did not blush! Ok, so I might've done all those things. In fact, I might have done them all so intensely, that Scorpius felt the need to impose on us the following conversation

"Merlin Rose, your face is all flushed! You aren't running a fever are you?"

"No."

"Let me check your temperature?"

With that he leaned forward and rested his head on mine. Who the hell checks temperature like that? _Hot guys do!_

"I'm not running a fever Scorpius" I said sounding as annoyed as I could about something I'd particularly enjoyed, pushing him away by his arm. Holy god of muscle. Let it be known that Scorpius Malfoy has great arms.

Not that it's weird or anything.

"But you're flushed"

"I…"

"Could it be that you're annoyed I'm wearing a shirt?" he said with a sly grin on his face.

_Yes!_

"No" Damn his face! Damn that smirk!_ Damn your shirt!_ I did not just think the last part.

"If you wanted me to take of my clothes, all you have to do is ask. Really?"

Well, two can play a game.

"Ok, Scorpius, take your shirt off." I said, a roguish smile on my face.

For a moment he was too stunned to react, grin in place and everything. Pretty much the only indication of his surprise had been his widened eyes. I looked forward intending to look bored but I felt my smile widen, which pretty much spurred him into action.

"Only if you say please."

Undeterred, and on hindsight, in a reckless move, I said blandly, looking him in the eye.

"Please, Scorpius, take your shirt off." _Checkmate._

"Ok." He said just as blandly and proceeded to take his shirt off.

What? No! Don't take your shirt off! Scorpius!

He turned looking me in the eye as he began to unbutton his shirt with the same roguish grin that had been there on mine. I very narrowly stopped myself from cursing. You know how when you play a game and you get a boost and suddenly you're in a new level with increased difficulty? Yeah, me neither! I had not been given enough practice time in the lower levels to deal with this expert level difficulty part of the game, a.k.a. Scorpius the stripper. In fact, I was using every ounce of my will power to maintain eye contact, ignore the fact that my heartbeat was thumping ridiculously fast in my chest and look unaffected. Finally, he unbuttoned the last button and pulled his shirt off of his shoulders before discarding it on the floor altogether. Did he do it that slowly on purpose?

Don't mess it up Rose. Stay cool.

"Happy?"

"Extremely, in f-"

"Anything for you, Rose."

"Now, unfortunately, while I enjoy you taking your clothes off very much, we have a council meeting up in an hour to discuss the Prefect time table for their rounds. Sadly, we have no Prefect time table."

"I see."

With that, we began setting up the prefect time table allotting the times and floors for their rounds. Scorpius, I am glad to inform you, remained very much shirtless throughout this exercise. Not that his lack of shirt in any way is related to my happiness. I mean, so what if he was covered in lean muscle that was extremely…thought inducing…like thoughts involving me and him and our lips extremely interested in each other… ok so I might have snuck a few peeks and… it had been a bad idea. Scorpius had a very, very attractive face. I just found out recently, he has an equally attractive torso. _Pale skin, lean muscle, abs…_Stop thinking about Scorpius' shirtless body Rose!

"Done!" I had to stop myself from shouting. I needed to get out of here. A.S.A.P.

Scorpius looked up to check the time on the wall clock.

"See you at the meeting Rose." Scorpius said getting up and beginning to move away.

Scorpius finally, picked up his shirt on his way back to his room and put it on, not even bothering to button up.

So you know the Muggle movie Saw? For some reason, the only thing I could think of as he sauntered off to his room shirt flying around him, besides a number of inappropriate thoughts, was Jigsaw's voice saying _"I want to play a game."_

I realized passively, as I walked back to my room to change to my uniform for the meeting, he'd won. _Fuck._

The meeting went by without much incident. I think most of the council was terrified of Scorpius, not because of the "Oh no! he's a Death Eater!" but more so because "Oh No! He's going to kill us if we don't show up for our rounds and that won't be fun." I think Scorpius, while broody in general, liked to play up his broodiness to mess with the younger students on the council.

As we walked back to our dorms after the meeting, Albus ran into me. Almost. He was running towards me really fast and before I could get out of the way, because clearly, his speed was not going to allow him to stop before hitting me, a pair of strong arms picked me up by the shoulders and moved me out of the way allowing Albus, to run into the wall behind me. Ok Scorpius had to stop doing this whole lifting me at random times like I was a rag doll. Not because it made me feel like a rag doll, it just bought his mouth closer to me in general, which, was very, very tempting and I am human. We've been known, historically, to give into temptation.

"Thanks Scorpius" I said grimacing at my brother. I know he's not really my brother but we lived together and he'd never called me anything besides his sister. I called him my cousin as an indicator to a threat, considering how he was stupid enough to miss them…often.

I was not aware of his hands lingering on my shoulders for a moment before he muttered "You're welcome" and pulled his hands off of me.

"Ouch." Albus groaned.

"I see you've met the wall." I said in a deadpan.

"Hey! Rose! Be nice to me, I just hit the wall."

"I understand you owe the wall an apology Potter." Scorpius said smoothly with a grin on his face next to me.

"Both of you!"

"Oh stop being such a baby!" I said crouching down pushing his hair out of the way to inspect the damage he'd inflicted on his forehead.

"It's just a bruise, Albus"

"Well I'll have you know it was a painful bruise."

"Serves you right for hitting such a nice wall. Scorpius and I are extremely sorry for Albus' thick skull and the greeting it bestowed onto you wall" I said looking at the wall.

"Yes, we offer our most sincere apologies." Scorpius said looking at the wall too.

"I can't believe I like you guys." Albus said looking at us indignantly

"You don't," I said

"You love us." Scorpius added.

Somewhere in the back of my head, a voice reminded me Scorpius just finished one of my sentences.

"More than there are fishes in the sea…was it?" I asked remembering Albus' drunk antics at the party where me and Scorpius…kissed. Ok this needed to be sent out of commission.

"Yeah." A strange look came over his face for a moment before he resumed his too bored to look at Albus expression.

"I do not!"Albus nearly shouted, ears flaming and all. I felt my smile return.

"If he's defensive, he meant it." Scorpius said grinning.

Oh.

He remembered me saying that. I was not flattered or flushed. My heartbeat was not fluttering like some stupid thirteen year old. No offence to thirteen year olds, but the group in general is given to nonsense such as tittering heartbeats. I was not given to similar nonsense. I was a no-nonsense, level headed seventeen year old. Get a grip Rose!

Albus and Scorpius got into an argument about how much Albus loved us.

Finally, I broke them off and suggested, everybody return to their dorm.

As we began walking back, I heard Albus shout my name again. With a sigh, I saw him running towards me again, not the full throttle ahead way it had been earlier, but running all the same.

"What now?" I muttered.

Albus finally reached me, stopped, panted for a good minute and then began.

"Rose, I totally forgot to ask you when I hit the wall. You got the letter, right?"

"What letter?"

"The one about Teddy and Victoire."

"What about them?"

"They're getting married."

"What?"

"They're getting married."

"I heard you, you prat!" Oh Merlin! They were getting married!

"I expected more excitement."

"I am excited."

"No squealing? No jumping? No 'I wonder what I'll wear?'?"

"Albus, when have you ever known me to be that kind of a person?"

"My mistake, I just told Lily and she had a bit of a… fit."

"I can see it happening."

"Scorpius, mate, I also wanted to extend invitations to you." Albus said turning to Scorpius.

"Me?" Scorpius' eyes were so wide in surprise, it was almost comical.

"No, the Fat Lady and Professor Brown." Albus said to him. I rolled my eyes as Scorpius just looked down and shook his head letting out breath.

"Albus, I'm busy over the summer."

"Yeah, and I'm a unicorn." Albus said beginning to walk away. "You're coming to the wedding. I'll have Fleur send you an invite. If she disagrees you can be Rose's date" he said without looking back. I might have felt a tiny, tiny flutter in my chest. Like, really tiny. Ease it up Rose.

"And if I disagree, you can always go with Albus." I said slyly looking up at Scorpius.

"And he won't agree so I'll just have to stay at home." he said in a deadpan, not even looking down at me as he walked with me to the dorm. "Are you really okay with me showing up to the wedding?" he asked me earnestly as we walked.

"No, I'd rather be eaten by the giant squid."

"Seriously, Rose!" I caught the troubled undertone of his voice and took me by surprise.

"I mean, me being a Malfoy and you and Albus being…"

Was he still stuck on that? Ok, time to set you straight you blubbering idiot.

"Scorpius, let's do a fact check here. I've known you're a Malfoy since I met you. Check. I also currently room with you. Check. I have absolutely no problem with your behaviour and can and will confirm to anybody and everybody that you hold none of the prejudices that pure bloods are known to have against half-bloods and muggle-borns. Check. I will personally hex anybody who accuses you of being a Death Eater not only because it is the biggest pile of crap I've had the misfortune to hear but also in its entirety is an absolute bunch of fucking lies. Check. The fact that you doubt in any way my faith in your inherent goodness and kindness, though often masked by broodiness and silence and or think I give a damn about what your last name is make me feel insulted Check. Wha-"

"I'm sorry." He said looking down at me, smiling that same smile of his that held so much power over me. I looked down to push back a blush and actively began ignoring how warm I felt at the fact that he'd directed his smile at me.

"I'm glad you understand. So in conclusion, what should be the appropriate set of actions to…you know, seal the deal with the whole forgiveness thing?"

"I should get down on my knees and beg for forgiveness?"

"Well you could do that. But it would be flashy and Rose Weasley isn't known for…well for lack of a better set of words to describe it, flashy. Instead, you could show me your burning need for forgiveness by coming to the wedding without this whole fuss."

"Okay." He said still smiling when I'd finally dared to look up at his face. Fortunately, he was looking ahead and not at me and did not notice the way my cheeks turned darker and it had nothing to do with the heat of summer.

The moment we could make out Pierre's features in his corridor, as I called it, he shouted.

"Rose!"

I waved at him and smiled as I picked up my pace and walked to him faster.

"Hi," I said when I finally reached him.

"Pierre," Scorpius said at the same time standing behind me.

We looked at each other for a moment, surprised at the coincidence. I smiled before turning back to Pierre, but I did catch his own smile that came to his face in response to mine.

"What happened?"

"I was told zat your cousin is getting married over summer."

"Yes, she is."

"Well, extend my felicitations to 'er won't you?"

"Of course."

"Will you be leaving before ze vacations?"

"No, I'm going during the vacations. Scorpius is too."

"Well, enjoy. I really do love weddings, not zat I 'ave seen any, you know, ze concept." Pierre said looking at us, his eyes wistful. He'd moved to the corner of the street in his painting, allowing us to see what he'd painted. A veil. I felt horrible for him. He didn't exactly have the choice to get moved around. So I offered all I could.

"Well, I can't take you, but, umm… if you want, I'll show you all the photos I take and describe the wedding to you in as much detail as you want.

He looked back at me with a small smile.

"I'd like zat."

"Of course you would." I said smiling back at him, relieved he wasn't mopey any more about things that were beyond his control.

Behind me, Scorpius sighed and said the password… it was chocolate if you were wondering… and we moved into the common room.

As I began to make my way to the common room, Scorpius interrupted me.

"Rose?"

"Yeah?" I said turning back.

"I, uh, wanted to clear something up with you."

I said nothing, just stood where I was, dreading what he'd say. For some reason, I knew it had to do with the drunken kiss we'd shared. One neither of us even remembered, but I thought about enough to drive me insane.

"About that time…when we um…well, when we kissed."

I stiffened. I did not want to keep going on this conversation. But, he'd been as much part of it as I was and had equal rights about it.

"It meant nothing." I said still not looking at him, not daring to. Taking a breath, hoping to calm my nerves enough to have a reasonable conversation.

"We were drunk and we didn't know what we were doing. It doesn't affect us at all, I mean, neither of us even remembers it. We should just-"

"I would like to remember it."

"Yeah, but that doesn't change anything, mainly because we were piss drunk and don't remember. So that fixes that…wait, did you just say…" I was stunned, I'd been ranting, hoping I would think of the correct set of words to get out of this situation. This was not what I had expected. In fact, he'd shocked me enough to get me to turn around.

"I'm in love with you." He looked so sincere, it was all I could do not to run across the room and kiss him right then and there. Which is probably why the most insensitive response to that set of words came out of my mouth, because I couldn't filter my thoughts and restrain myself at the same time.

"Is this some sort of twisted joke?"

"What?" he said letting out a chuckle. Everything about him was suddenly very in focus as I let myself study him. The way his hair was slightly tousled by the wind, the line of his jaw, the intense grey of his eyes, the curve of his lip. Stop.

"I mean, it's not funny Scorpius, I'd really rather-" He was too close to me for me to finish that sentence. He'd moved forward the moment I'd begun talking and reached me in three elegant strides and have I mentioned how hot I found the fact that he was ridiculously tall?

"You know," he said leaning down so his face was at my level, his head slowly tilting a bit, "You are the first girl to ask me if my valiant declaration of love is a joke. Frankly, I'm a bit insulted."

I began moving back to put some space between us. Scorpius didn't let me. He moved in sync with me moving forward as I moved backwards… until I hit the door to my dorm, that is. How ironic was this. The door opened outwards. With me in front of it I had no way of entering my dorm without moving forward enough to make enough space for me to enter. Moving forward would involve moving close enough to Scorpius to nuzzle him, of sorts. I was unwilling to do that. There was only so much control I had and I had no intention of throwing myself at him. Ok, I might've had some intention to throw myself at him, but this was not how it would go down. How ironic was it that I was so close to escape yet so far away.

"But Rose," he said leaning closer still, snapping me out of my line of thought, our foreheads now touching, "that doesn't change the fact that I just said."

I could barely breathe, much less think. A shiver shook through me the moment that his forehead touched mine and he let out a breath that tickled my neck as his eyes closed. I was dying to lean up just a little and kiss his skin and run my fingers through his hair. I was probably blushing like crazy right now, pale skin be damned!

"What fact?" my voice had become a whisper. He cracked his eyes open staring into mine.

"The fact that I love you." His voice was turning husky as he slid them shut again, his hands reaching mine, his fingers interlacing between mine. I felt my eyes slide shut the moment he'd said those three damned words. My skin was on fire. All I could think of in that moment was kissing him. He leaned down a bit more, so his lips were just next to my ear, so, so close, his breath was making my hair move and it was driving me insane.

"And I think, you'll find, it will give me great joy if you return my feelings." He whispered. Ridiculously, as ridiculous moments happen, I felt a mischievous smile find its way to my face as he began standing back up straight. I stood on my toes and pulled him down by the collar as I moved close to his ear the same way he had just seconds ago.

"I think you'll have to help me confirm them." I whispered.

His head shot a little higher than my face, surprise and what I was pretty sure was desire flashing in his eyes. Then with a roguish grin of his own, he leaned back down, his lips almost touching mine, his arms pushing me back into the door as he looked at me with half lidded eyes he said, "Gladly."

His lips were on mine in a heartbeat as one of his hands were in my hair and the other loosely around my neck, his thumb on my cheek. Electricity shot through me as I drowned in the addicting feel of his lips. My arms went around his neck pulling him closer as his own arms descended to my waist pulling me off the floor and pushing me back into the door as they held me in place about a foot and a half in the air. _Oh fucking Merlin! _The world disappeared around us. I realized, somewhere through kissing Scorpius, that I was in love with him too. With that realization, the kiss became so much more intense. The way his lips moved against mine sent my heartbeat hammering away. I was suddenly simultaneously powerless and powerful all at once, his movements sending shivers down my body and mine sending shivers down his. Finally, we broke apart. Scorpius made no move to break our embrace and I ran one of my hands through his hair staring back at him. Our breathing was harsh and I'm pretty sure mine tickled him just as much as his breath tickled me.

"Did that help you figure out your feelings for me?" he said, his lips touching mine as they moved sending sparks down my body. I really wanted nothing more than to kiss him again.

"We're on the right track. I think we'll need to do this a few more times to make sure."

"Of course. I'll help."

He helped me. A lot of times. After a long time, not a long enough time, but long time all the same, we found ourselves lying on his sofa, him lying on his back and me lying on top of him with one his arms loosely around my waist and his other arm playing with a lock of hair.

"Scorpius." I said looking at him, my hand moving to his neck while I rubbed circles into his shoulder with my other one.

"Yeah."

"The studies have a conclusive result."

"And what is this conclusive result?"

"I'm in love with you too."

He smiled as he pushed himself off the couch into a sitting position, one of his hands coming up to cup my face and pulled me closer as his lips descended to mine and I was hit by the same electricity and burning passionate skin and butterflies in the stomach as I had been the first time we kissed…well the first kiss that I remembered, that is. When he pulled away, he leaned back on the sofa, his arms still around me as he said, "I've wanted to do this for a really long time."

"To be fair, I'd done my bit and asked for permission to do exactly that back in fifth year when I'd asked you out. So, told you so."

"I had the hugest crush on you since fourth year, so, no Rose, _I_ told you so."

"What?"

"I really did."

"Then why'd you say you'd rather date a pickled cucumber than me?" I asked sourly. It was still insulting to have been rejected over cucumbers of all things.

"You remember?"

"Of course I remember! That was the first time I'd ever been compared to a cucumber as a response from a guy I just asked out."

"Well, I thought you'd get mad at me about the 'Malfoy' and Death Eater thing eventually because you probably held it against me too somewhere in your subconscious and it would be just cruel to be given a chance to be allowed to be in love with you and then have it taken away."

"So why'd you say it now?"

"Well, when you gave me the whole list about stuff you accepted about me in the corridors, I kind of realized that you really didn't give a fuck about that sort of stuff, that you only saw me for me and not the surname that I was so sure was a part of me and, I fell so hard for you right then, I couldn't think of anything I wanted to do besides telling you since."

"Whoa! Easy there Scor! You'll collapse a lung or something. Speaking that much! I've had an influence on you I see." I can't believe I was capable of joking at a moment like this when I was floored by his honesty and feelings. Well I was Rose Weasley.

"Rose, you've had an influence on me since forever. I should win something for not just pushing you into a wall and kissing you senseless for this long with the way you were influencing me."

"What did I ever do? I was an innocent girl just being seduced by you!"

"Innocent girl? Do you have any clue how short those shorts you wear are? I damn nearly went crazy digging my fingers into my fist to stop myself."

"You were looking?"

"No I'm blind."

"No, I just thought that, well that you were into your girlfriends…umm…very wholeheartedly…and I don't share any features with them or anything…so…"

"Their features," he said with a grin on his face, "were so different from yours because I have been trying my hardest to get over anything remotely like you. I kind if gave up today."

I was flattered. So I had an effect like that on him. For the first time since I'd moved to this dorm, I made no attempt to hide my blush.

"Also," he continued, "you're breath-taking and beautiful."

I looked down as I muttered thanks. In my whole life, never once had I believed I was pretty, much less beautiful and every time someone had said it, I'd dismissed it as flattery, but right now, as he said it, I realized, he genuinely meant it. I looked back up at him with a smile on my face leaning on his chest, looking up at him.

"Is that why you felt the need to play Scor likes to striptease Rose earlier today?"

"Yes, that was exactly why." He said with laughter lacing his voice.

"Oh Scor! Albus will be heartbroken."

"We'll set him up with Summers."

"Aha! So you admit he was in love with you."

"Rose!"

"So did you love him back Scor? Is this some sort of Weasley-Potter family roaster you're building up."

"No, I've been too busy pining over you."

That shut me up. And also put a blush on my face. I let out a sigh.

Maybe living with Scorpius would be perfect.

* * *

AUTHOR'S NOTE-

All done. I am fangirling so hard about this!

In case you are wondering, yes there will be more chapters..of course, the bad guys haven't even started doing their thing yet! I really do apologize for uploading so much later after the whole 'an upload a day keeps the fangirl at bay' type uploading. I had like, serious writer's block.

In happier news, I hope to upload the next chapter by...12 May, tops... I think...*smiles and waves peace sign*

As a peace offering, here's how the Scorpius-Rose fifth year asking out went-

* * *

We both had Prefect Night Duty together, me and Scorpius that is. In the beginning, I had thought the Head Girl and Head Boy had been playing some sort of a cruel trick on the two of us, putting a Gryffindor and Slytherin together. I didn't mind really, considering I had the biggest crush on him ever. So of course, sometime around the last week of school before the Winter holidays, I'd forced myself into the following events...well conversation

"Um...Scorpius" I called after him

"Yes."

"I..wanted to tell you something."

He stopped and turned back, looking at me with a bored expression.

"I really like you. Like, _like you_ like you."

"Are you serious?"

"Yes!"

"I would rather date a cucumber. Maybe even a pickled cucumber...and I don't even like cucumbers."

I flushed looking at him walk back towards his common room realizing I'd been rejected. It stung..a lot...for about a week. A lot of ice cream and bitching sessions with Alice Longbotttom, my best friend had been required to aid my recovery.

* * *

AUTHOR'S NOTE(CONTD.)-

The following:

1\. DAMN YOUR TWEEN-ASS BULLSHIT ROSE! I WORK SO HARD TO WRITE YOU AS SUCH A COOL CHARACTER! WHY YOU GOT TO HAVE A CRAP FANGIRL PHASE AT FOURTEEN-FIFTEEN YEARS OF AGE! #damn this teenage nonsense #guilty pleasure #why am I so wierd sometimes)

2\. Yes, we will be seeing more of Alice Longbottom. She's been around the whole time, but Rose's accounts were generally limited to her interactions with Scorpius.

3\. We will be seeing Harry, Ron, Hermione and the whole set of the characters who survived Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (well sans Arthur Weasley, because I killed him of disease a little while ago. Sorry!)

4\. Please review and tell me what you felt about this. To those who have already reviewed/followed/favourited: You the best! Keep Reviewing please! If you don't think reviewing is your thing, feel free to follow or favourite it.

I hope you're have a good day and if you're reading this during the night, I hope you have a good day tomorrow.

Love,

Reader-chan


	7. Chapter 7

The next chapter is up! It's from Scorpius' point of view!

* * *

DISCLAIMER: I really don't own Harry Potter guys.

* * *

**SCORPIUS**

Scorpius stared at the tall, middle aged, red haired man man who looked stonily back at him. According to Rose and Albus' cover story, he was simply a very close friend, and while it had seemed that he had seemed apprehensive about this sudden friendship, he had gotten over it within two days of meeting the boy. Throughout the duration of these two days, Scorpius had found himself torn between regretting the decision to come with his best friend and girlfriend a whole two weeks earlier to help them and the Weasley family prepare for the wedding and appreciating the amazing experience.

Regret because pretty much every male in the family with perhaps the sole exception of Albus made sure Scorpius knew that they thought he was only interested in getting into Rose's pants, which to be fair, while he was very much interested in getting in her pants, he'd planned to have enough self-control and common sense to not attempt in the presence of half a dozen Weasley's and Potters but also, there was no way in hell that her pants were the sole item having interest holding capabilities. He'd watch her naming countries and their capitals for hours if she wanted to and still be just as in love with her as he was right now. Which was a lot, just saying.

They'd made clear their thoughts in varying degrees of subtlety. Ranging from the unveiled and seething, "You touch Rose and I'll cut off whatever part of you is touching her" from James to the subtle "I have been made to understand that you have some interest in my niece and let me tell you that is not a very wise decision that you have made" from the great Harry Potter himself and the somewhere in between from George, "You realize we have no intentions to go easy on you Malfoy? For crushing on Rose that is…" That was after the first day or two where they accused him of being there to avenge his father and being an undercover Death Eater. Apparantly, they were an intuitive lot and had realized the lack of Death Eater characteristics and more prominent dangers of the fact that he was a boy and that she was a girl.

_Just my luck._

The fact that the whole family went out of their way to make sure that he had close to no contact with Rose and that her Veela cousin Victoire, who was getting married, made it a point to keep quizzing him about their status which he had religiously maintained was _'just friends'_ and derivied some evil glee from it was getting to Scorpius. Also, Albus, with whom he had been fated to share a room snored louder than a stampede of elephants at night. Scorpius believed it was an amalgamation of the two combined that had forced Scorpius to carry out the crazy set of actions that followed.

The house, Shell cottage had been magically expanded and given extra storeys and all to help accommodate the guests, but the ivy that grew along the side of the house had remained. As Albus snored for the sixty third time…._yes he was counting_… Scorpius decided, "Enough is enough". Rose was in the room right next to them on the third floor. He sincerely believed that her family had done so simply to spite him, because Mr. Weasley's warning still rang in his ears. "Listen up boy, try to get into Rose's room, in fact, you so much as step towards her side of the corridor across this line," he said pointing at a line he'd drawn in chalk, "and I'll make sure you find out what real pain is." Scorpius would normally have snorted to himself but Mr. Weasley's intense glare and severe voice had pretty much managed to scare the living daylight out of him and he would not risk it. However, he had no intentions of continuing staying in the room with the wailing walrus that was his best friend.

So Scorpius did the ridiculous. He went out to the balcony of his room, threw down his pillow and blanket and then proceeded to climb down the thick ivy that had grown onto the wall. There were about two or three moments where he nearly lost purchase and had known with absolute surety that his life would end a bloody mess at the bottom of the ivy. His original plan had been to sleep on the tiled floor along the sides of the house. That plan was thwarted by Rose Weasley herself. He'd nearly fallen asleep. At exactly that moment, Rose had decided to come out on her own balcony and let out a sigh.

Her smooth, feminine sigh was literally all it took for Scorpius' eyes to fly open and as they stared straight up, he caught sight of her beautiful silhouette shrouded in moonlight. Her pale skin appearing ethereal and angelic as the gentle light of the moon illuminated her skin and eyes. Scorpius was transfixed. She had never looked more beautiful. In that moment, he realized that while Rose may not think much of her beauty, her part Veela cousins had nothing on her, because he would always find that it was Rose, not them who had the ability to take his breath away in seconds.

Almost as if on cue, she looked down. He could make out the exact moment she saw him, her eyes widening and a hand rising to her mouth as it fell open. Next she blinked rapidly, he could barely make out her eyes in the darkness but he saw her blink and let out a chuckle. "She could be so cute sometimes" he thought, his body beginning to heat up as his brain, almost instantly began setting up scenarios which would not only scandalize if he knew but the whole 'real pain' deal would have to be realised, though he doubted the older man would need much persuading.

"Scorpius?" she called. Cursing, she turned back and looked into her room, alarm on her features. Immediately, she reached through the window and pulled out her wand and cast some spell Scorpius could not hear. Apparantly satisfied enough with that, she replaced the wand through the window and continued hissing insults at him.

"Hold on," he said back, wincing at how loud it was. For the second time that night, he did the same reckless, possibly fatal activity. He climbed the ivy that grew between their balconies. The moment Rose realized what he was doing, she began hissing at him to stop as quietly as possible. Scorpius however, decided had missed Rose too much and the 'close friend' pretence be damned, he was going to be on that balcony with Rose. Unlike his clumsy and embarrassing descent the first time, his ascent up the ivy was rather admirable. Not once did he slip. He wondered if it was 'young love' as Victoire had called it, fuelling him to climb the creeper. Fortunately, the ivy held and within about two minutes, he was safely on a balcony, with a furious brunette cursing at him with her arms around his middle and head buried in his chest. His arms went loosely around her waist naturally seemingly unaware of the heat and contentment Rose's touch were causing his body to feel.

"You thoughtless polar bear!" she hissed into his chest, her arms tightening around him. He almost laughed. Her insults generally involved making fun of the fact that he was tall and pale. She seemed to say them off of the top of her head without putting any real thought to them. He chuckled as he remembered a string of insults she'd used against him before, "you overgrown vampire!", "You inexcusable Yeti!", "You disgusting animated over-salted stew!", "You two-legged low-life unicorn!". He would forever be amused by the fact that she used a different insult each time.

"Scorpius Hyperion Malfoy" her voice threatened, "do you think this is a joke?"

He was too muddled by happiness and love at that moment to care about the consequences. So he leaned down to kiss her forehead as he sat down on right there on the balcony, bringing her down with him so she sat between his legs while his arms remained wrapped around her.

"No."

"Then why in Merlin's name would you climb a precarious vine to come to my balcony?"

"Because I missed you so much." He said placing another kiss on her forehead, sheer joy running through him.

She mellowed down at that, a soft smile forcing it's way to her face even though she hadn't wanted it to. She leaned back against his chest and let out a sigh.

"Oh Scorpius! Just try not to attempt fatal scaling of walls next time."

"That's rich coming from you who climbed ledges to escape Madam Pomfrey."

Rose let out a full blown laugh. Scorpius rested his chin on her head as he began laughing himself as well.

"Can you believe no one woke up through this?"

"I know!"

"It's because I cast a silencing charm in the balcony." Of course you did. You're brilliant.

He could hear Albus' snoring even here in the next balcony. How did Rose sleep next door to him ever? He'd heard from Albus a long time ago how he lived in one huge house that his parents and Rose's parents had built together after the war. They apparently even had a mini Quidditch pitch.

"How do you sleep when he sounds like that?" Scorpius asked Rose making no move to move his head from where he'd placed it over hers, tucking her head under his chin.

"You get used to it. It's literally impossible to sleep in the same room as him though…is that why you were downstairs?"

"Yes."

"Why didn't you use the stairs?"

"I'd have to cross your room to reach the stairs."

"So?"

"I'd also be crossing the chalk line your dad drew on the floor which is apparently supposed acquaint me with 'real pain' and I quote him on the 'real pain' part."

Rose groaned. "I'm so sorry. This is all my fault. My entire family has been treating you like a pile of Hippogriff dung and it's all because I forced you to come here early."

"Rose,"

"What?"

"I wouldn't exchange being with you right here for anything in the world. I'm the happiest I've been since this whole trip began right now." He said his grey eyes looking straight into hers as held her shoulders a little away from himself. Next he pulled her right back to him returning them to the embrace they had been in before. For a while, Rose was quiet. Then of course, in what Scorpius had come to find was true Rose Weasley fashion, she began the conversation again.

"So I make you really happy Scorpius?"

"More than anything."

"How flattering." She cooed and Scorpius knew something was up.

"It's the truth." He replied in a deadpan.

"Well, then how about this?" she said as she got up on her knees and began kissing his jaw. Heat shot through Scorpius instantly as his hands moved around her waist holding her close his eyes immediately closing.

"Rose, you're going to be the death of me." He whispered.

"I'd rather be more involved with the reasons for you to live." She whispered into his ear as her lips moved along the shell of his ear driving him insane.

"You already are." He whispered back before his hands on her waist tightened and his lips descended on hers.

After a one precious hour of making out, Scorpius saw the sky lighten.

"You should go now, before my dad…incapacitates you." Rose whispered into his neck with kiss-swollen lips.

"I know." He said back simply.

"Why did the night end so quickly?"

"It did didn't it? But it was the best night of my life."

She chuckled against his neck and began pulling him down to kiss him when they heard the pounding footsteps up the stairs. Both of them split apart ridiculously fast as Scorpius almost instantly climbed over the balcony railing and began moving across the ivy towards his own balcony. Rose remained clutching the railing tersely watching the entire episode. Finally he reached his balcony and jumped into it. Grateful to be on firm tile and concrete rather than protesting leaves and stem. When Rose heard the door handle turn, it was too late for Rose to run to her bed and turning around then would have looked phony. So she did the only thing she could think of in her panic-stricken state. She leaned comfortably on the balcony staring straight at Scorpius with an easy smile. Scorpius thought it was the way the sunlight illuminated her hair or something but he found, that in that moment, there was little else he wanted to see, ever.

Mr. Weasley was at the balcony so fast, Scorpius thought he had apparated. He'd tried to subtly open the door, but his loud footsteps had been a give-away. He stared suspiciously between Rose and Scorpius, all sleep immediately dissipating from his expression.

"Boy, we need to talk."

And that had been how Scorpius found himself sitting on the table across a stony looking . He'd seen more empathy on a gargoyle's face back at Malfoy Manor and most of them were meant to look terrifying.

Scorpius had been delicately buttering a toast when sourly began the dreaded conversation.

"What were you doing?"

"I was talking to Rose."

"Even after I told you not to go to her room?"

"I wasn't in her room."

"Are you trying to play smart with me?"

"No sir."

"Good."

Scorpius simply nodded.

"Listen boy, let me make this very clear. I do not like you. Do you understand?"

"Yes sir."

"You know any Unforgivable curses?"

"Excuse me?"

"Answer the bloody question."

"No sir."

Absently, looked up from his tea to his wife who was talking with Victoire. He let out a sigh that sounded more exhausted than anything else.

"Listen up, you hurt one hair on my baby daughter's head, even one, I will make sure I'll hurt you a lot."

Scorpius would probably have backed off if it had been any other girl. Hell he'd have left within hours. But this was Rose, and the idea of being able to spend a fortnight with her had been too much for him to resist, she had made sure of that, so Scorpius sat straight against his chair and simply nodded at with what he hoped was a sincere expression on his face. As if sensing when she was needed, as she always did, Rose entered the dining room. Her hair was still dishevelled but it did nothing to deter the beauty he'd always seen in her from shining through, sending through him the same warmth the sight of her always did. She kissed her dad on the cheek and said a warm 'Good Morning'. While clearly felt like he was chewing on a lemon when he saw Scorpius, he made no effort to conceal the fact that he adored his daughter, evident in the way his eyes lit up and he smiled at her and nodded.

She went around the table and sat down right next to Scorpius, her leg brushing his. Scorpius was really proud of his self-control. Even simple contact with her bought back memories of just a few minutes ago when those exact limbs had been entwined around him and those soft, soft lips had been moving against his. He wanted nothing more than to pull her right back to him and resume what had interrupted. _Focus!_ So Scorpius focused on chewing his toast. Surreptitiously, Rose's leg brushed against his again, this time lingering a moment before moving away. _For the love of-Was she smiling!_ Rose most definitely had the most devilish smile on her face as she read the newspaper. She looked up innocently from the newspaper, her expression instantly changing from demon to angel.

"Daddy, did you and Scorpius reach a compromise."

While his expression evidently soured from the look of a man who had everything he ever wanted, it was nothing close to what Scorpius was getting just a little while ago. No frosty looks, no threats, just mild irritation.

"Yes."

"Really?" she said her eyes widening in delight, "Oh Daddy! I'm so glad you and Scorpius figured things out!" she said smiling at him and turning to smile at Scorpius with a smile that made him catch his breath.

Her smile was contagious, both Scorpius and smiled affectionately looking at her. Scorpius did not notice the older red haired man look at him. He did not see the man's eyes widen for a moment, before he let out a quiet sigh and looked right back at his tea.

Victoire and Teddy apparently had a love story straight from those best-selling romances. They'd been inseparable since Victoire was five and Teddy was seven. Eventually, they'd fallen in love and if the Weasley's were to be believed, they'd seen it coming back then. There were few members of the Potter-Weasley family who liked Scorpius. Rose's muggle grandparents, Molly Weasley, who also rather frequently liked to mention that Scorpius was too skinny and tended to hand him some delicious handmade snack that she claimed was healthy as well and Rose's mother.

Rose's mother looked exactly like what Scorpius expected Rose to look like when she was older. It was disconcerting, really.

The wedding was beautiful. They'd set up a huge tent on the beach. Rose wore a beautiful silver-grey dress that Victoire had chosen for the bridesmaids. She looked stunning. Even though glared at him most of the time he danced with Rose, which was a lot of time by the way, he couldn't think of anywhere else he'd want to be.

Albus had invited Daisy Summers and was dancing with her._ Thank you Merlin!_ If Scorpius had to tolerate one more simpering attempt of making him fall in love with her, he would hex her. He looked rather smitten, as he talked to her while dancing with him in her rather short red dress.

Of course over autumn, Albus would find Daisy had been using him to get close to Scorpius and also that Daisy almost hexed Rose, if not for Rose's almost theatrical 'Expellarmus' she would have lost a considerable amount of hair. Fortunately, in a whirlwind romance with Natalie Bearcross, a Gryffindor, Albus found the 'new' love of his life. Everything, for the first time in his life, Scorpius found, was perfect. It was because of this happy, love-driven haze, that Scorpius had completely overlooked the increasingly cool wording of his grandfather's letters. That, Scorpius thought regrettably, had been his first mistake. The dooming letter came in late October, a little before Halloween.

_Scorpius,_

_I am displeased to inform you that I am extremely disgusted by your behaviour as of late. It is understandable that you attended that heinous Weasley wedding and what-not. I understand the burden of the Malfoy name is not an easy one to carry, but your recent letters to your father where you mention that you are courting the hideous Weasley child is outrageous and quite simply intolerable. Have I not taught you the meaning of being a Malfoy? It is the purity of our blood that makes us better than all the rest. Do you plan to sully both our blood and name with that girl who carries the blood of her Mudblood mother and that red haired monstrosity of a blood traitor? I will absolutely not permit this. Stop now, or I shall take action. Know, I will not think twice before spilling the blood of that filthy half blood._

_Sincerely_

_Grandfather._

Scorpius stared at the letter horrified. The moment he finished reading it, he threw it into the fire in their shared common room. He remembered his grandfather trying to instill in him the bloodlust and hatred he felt for Muggles. Every single day, the old man would try his best to antagonize them and make them sound like the worst thing possible. But then night would come to pass and his parents would work really hard to undo whatever damage he would have incurred. Well, that and Hogwarts, where he'd learned how people looked down upon those fanatical purebloods who felt like they owned the world. Hogwarts, had made sure that he would hold no such prejudice, that the first person to recognize that would be a half-blood herself, that she would steal his heart and come to own his soul in a way he had no control over.

Surely, grandfather wouldn't attack Rose. He remembered his grandfather as the stern man who gave him a box of sweets and a new broom when he learnt how to fly his broom, the man who'd looked after him that afternoon when he had the flu and his parents had been away, the man who had assured him that thunderstorms would not hurt him. So how had it come to this.

Scorpius made a decision. He would ignore this letter. Tell himself that his grandfather was still the loving man who bought him his first board of Wizarding Chess, not the hateful monster who seemed to have written this. So he did. He tried to ignore the panic he'd felt when he saw Rose accept a package from grandfather's owl, that when she opened it and it attempted to automatically hex her, that she barely got away with just a bruise on her arm because she had been fast enough to cast a shield charm. But he couldn't. His arms trembled still as he held her close, wishing that it was enough to protect her from the world, from a man whom he had once loved. Scorpius felt terrified sometimes at night, that his grandfather would send her something at night and that he would hurt her irrevocably and he wouldn't be there but what really, truly scared him even more, was him hurting her.

Somehow, Scorpius found, that he could not find it in himself to tell her that it was his grandfather, who was behind these juvenile yet dangerous attempts to hurt her. How could he possibly tell her that?

The final match between Slytherin and Gryffindor was when it happened. His grandfather had come to see the game. _No! _He knew why the old man was there. He would hurt Rose. _Please don't let him hurt Rose._ So for the first time in his life, Scorpius Hyperion Malfoy, seeker of the Slytherin team did not give a damn about where the snitch was. His eyes were focused alternately from Rose to the old man who was always, always studying her as well. The first half of the game went without much event. In fact, for a moment, Scorpius allowed himself to believe, that perhaps, his grandfather had given up. Maybe, just maybe, his grandfather had more to himself than the man who tried to poison his mind with lies. Just maybe, he was the stern but kind man that Scorpius had always thought him to be. So when Rose flew straight up, higher even than the Seekers, Albus and he, with a wild smile on her face, Scorpius let out a sigh and allowed himself a smile of his own. Scorpius let his guard down.

And then all hell broke loose. Rose Weasley, who he remembered telling him stories of how she'd struggled with flying at first but with some secret practice with her father and Aunt Ginny perfected it, who had proudly said that she had never once fallen off the broom once she'd gotten the grip of it, the Rose Weasley whom he loved with all her heart fell. He froze, and as she fell, so, so fast,_ too fast_, he saw his grandfather smile and place his wand back in his pocket. Even as he rushed towards her on his broom, he knew he wouldn't make it. He heard the sickening thump of her body hitting the field after falling through about fifty feet. He had to get to her. Heavens knew what his grandfather would do to her if she was alone without an audience forcing him to be discreet. So ridiculously, as he saw her body being lugged to Madam Pomfrey, he moved up about twenty five feet from the ground and faked a fall. As he fell, he saw Albus do the same. Smart boy, Albus. Unlike Rose, who had passed out on hitting the pitch, they remained conscious and in intense pain.

Madam Pomfrey was horrified. It showed on her face, Rose had been bought in with them. She told a random nurse to give Albus and him some pain reliever and that she would tend to them after Rose. She was probably with Rose for three whole hours. Every second sent an accusation towards him. Neither of them spoke a single word during these three hours. After Madam Pomfrey came out looking tired and fixed the two of them up, Albus finally spoke.

"I saw your grandfather curse Rose." He said tersely.

"Yes." He replied warily.

"Why?"

For a moment, Scorpius wanted to clam up and make some excuse about not knowing, but he was so tired of this mess that had been created because he was stubbornly holding on to this love that his deranged grandfather would not allow. He was so exhausted of bearing the burden and so, he told his best friend everything.

"Scorpius?" Albus asked when Scorpius finished.

"Yeah."

"You are what one calls a royal git." Albus said, his anger evident in his voice.

"Yeah."

He groaned as he got up from his bed and covered the short distance between their adjacent beds. Then, he punched Scorpius hard in the gut. Pain filled his system and for a moment, Scorpius felt like he would have been better off dead.

"That was for hurting Rose."

Scorpius let out a groan as the pain subsided.

"I'm sorry Albus."

"It's ok."

He wondered how he could get them out of this situation with as less physical damage as possible. The solution hit him within moments. He did not like it, but it was necessary and he would rather die than see Rose hurt again.

"Albus?"

"What?"

"Punch me again."

"Why?"

"Because I'm going to break up with Rose soon, in a not nice way."

Albus' response was to simply punch him harder. Scorpius let out a sigh once the pain subsided.

"Well, at least one thing is clear."

"What's that?"

"The dorm life won't be as rocking and fun as it used to be for you." He said with a small smile.

Ridiculously, in what was most definitely a low in his life, about to lose the one girl he'd ever genuinely loved, in intense physical pain and hurt by the betrayal of his grandfather, Scorpius laughed. For the first time, a Quidditch match lasted between the two houses for a grand total of eighteen hours and forty seven minutes. Slytherin caught the snitch, but it was a tie. Quite anticlimatic, considering the year's worth of build-up.

It had taken them a week to feel less sore. Rose had required an extra five days and every day, she vowed to break out to Scorpius and Albus. Madam Pomfrey, however seemed to have learnt her lesson after Rose's first break out, as she almost always hovered around Rose. So finally, when Rose returned back to her shared dorm with Scorpius, after nearly two weeks, Pierre has squealed at the sight of her. She'd made small talk with him for a while and then gone into the dorm.

"Hey Scorpius?"

"Yeah?"

"Did I ever tell you what I wanted to be?"

"No, what?"

"A healer."

A healer? He didn't know how to react to this, Rose was the kind of person who was a Healer's nightmare, prone to breaking out, not finishing her course on herbs etc. but she was also kind to a fault and compassionate and smart. So Scorpius told her what he felt about it.

"It suits you."

She smiled at him and as Scorpius' heart sped up at the sight of the smile, he felt a voice telling him that he'd be leaving this. It was probably that voice that made him lift her off the floor and pull her into the fiery kiss that followed. When she pulled away, she smiled against his forehead.

"You missed me that much huh?"

"More than you can imagine."

"I think I can."

"Why's that?"

"Because I imagine you missed me as much as I missed you."

And with that, she pulled him back into a much gentler, slower, loving kiss and even as Scorpius' skin burned where she touched it, itching to be touched more, somewhere, he decided, that he had just a few more days with her and he would revel in them more than anything.

It happened rather messily. He'd been flirting with Gemima West all week, and on Friday, just a little before when Rose's Quidditch practice ended, he'd invited Gemima into their common room. He'd also proceeded to kiss her senseless, ignoring that his mind was screaming at him that this was wrong and that it was not Rose's brown soft hair that was under his fingers but Gemima's straight blonde hair. He even let Gemima's hungry hands take off his shirt. He was getting tired of this, disgusted with himself sooner than he used to, back when making out with someone else had been his only weapon against Rose and her charms.

To his relief and not-relief, Rose entered, looking tired but smiling as she walked in. She was so, so beautiful. Scorpius realized right then that he could kiss every single girl in the world but she would never be Rose. He saw as her smile fell from her face, he saw the exact moment her heart broke. And he felt his own break with hers. _I love you Rose. _

After a whole month of not talking to each other, Rose finally lost patience and snapped at him one day.

"Where did we go wrong?"

After not hearing her direct a single sentence to him for so long, feeling starved for a single sentence, even a single insult, or an array of them, he found he had not been prepared for the hurt in her voice. It was the hardest thing in the world to fake indifference.

"I got bored."

She looked at him with her eyes narrowed. Had his tone given him away. She almost turned to leave, before she turned back, an afterthought had clearly forced her to stay.

"You're lying."

"No."

"Scorpius Hyperion Malfoy! Do not insult my intelligence. I know you're lying. In fact, you're scared." She said pacing towards him with each word. He was not prepared to be this close to her. Not prepared for that familiar scent to wash over him, not prepared to see the highlights hidden in her hair, not prepared to see the curve of her lips this close. He was not prepared for her.

"Stop comforting yourself." Her eyes widened as she ignored the scathing words and continued staring at him.

"What are you so afraid of Scorpius?" she whispered, her hand reaching down to interlace their fingers. His fingers itched to pull her hand closer, to pull her closer. _Stop!_ He pulled his hand away as if she had burned him.

"Rose, go away." He looked away from her expecting her to look hurt and unable to deal with the idea that he'd caused her more pain.

"Is it because your grandfather confounded me during that Quidditch match?" she said looking at him with her eyebrows furrowed. But he wasn't looking at her anymore. He was watching her fall too fast through the air for him to catch and hearing the sickening crack of her bones all over again. Scorpius went pale, his hands trembling as he backed away._ No. Don't hurt her anymore. Please. Not again._

"You knew?" he whispered looking down at her, his voice breaking.

"That your grandfather had been resorting to stupid hexes disguised as letters and then suddenly elevated to knocking me off my broom? Yes."

"How?"

"I blackmailed Albus."

He was shaking so hard his head in his hands when her smaller warmer hands reached up and pulled him down. He let her. He let her arms go around his neck and for the first time in so long, he let himself hold her and take her in.

"I love you so much Rose. I'm so sorry. I didn't want to believe it. I was…I…" he'd lost control. His voice was breaking every now and then, tears flowing freely from his eyes. He finally allowed himself to mourn the faith he had placed in the monster that was his grandfather as a child.

She didn't say a single word. She held him close and he clung to her desperate for reassurance, that she was okay, that she wasn't hurt. He didn't remember how long they stayed like that, just that she held him just as tightly as he held her, that she occasionally kissed his cheek that she made no move to get out of his tight embrace on her lap where he had collapsed on the floor, taking her with him, that she murmured "I'm ok." every time his fears overtook his thought process.

Finally, somewhere in the middle of the night, he calmed down. In fact, he was slightly embarrassed about the unmanly crying that had just gone down on his part.

"This is a mess." Rose said into his chest where she'd been leaning. He didn't say anything, simply nodded, his arms unconsciously tightening around her.

"Rose, did I ever tell you what I wanted to be?" Scorpius spoke in a dream back when he was still with her, when he hadn't broken her heart.

"No, what?"

"An auror." _'To protect you'_ remained unspoken behind those words.

With a smile, she let out a sigh against his chest. Even this distressed, her sigh sent his skin tingling with its warmth. "It suits you." She said looking down at their entwined hands.

"Ok." She said suddenly, straightening up against him.

"Ok what?" he asked looking down at her.

"Ok, lets figure out our course of action."

"Ok."

"I feel like this dialogue had a ridiculous number of okays." Even in times of emotional breakdown, Rose would always have the ability to make him smile. Leaning down to plant a kiss on her nose, he leaned back.

"What's the plan Rose?"

"First of all, you apologize to Gemima."

"What?"

"You used her. I am not the kind of person who likes people used or people using other people. It was a low thing to do."

"I had to make it believable."

"That is no excuse for your behaviour."

"Ok. What next?"

"You kiss me."

"Excuse me?"

"Oh Merlin!" she exclaimed as she pulled him down to her level and kissed him. His blood raced through his veins as his hands instinctively wrapped around her. Lust burned in him but there was something else too, there was love. Hot, passionate, burning love. Kissing her after so long felt like coming home again. Finally, reluctantly, as they broke apart with their foreheads touching breathing heavily, Rose continued.

"And I come to your place for Christmas and fix things up with your grandfather."

"Rose, no!" Everything in Scorpius had screamed and rejected the idea. There was no way he was letting her go near his blood thirsty grandfather.

"Scorpius, has following your plan done anything but hurt the two of us?" He felt guilt stabbing him in the chest as he remembered her broken expression back when she had seen him kissing Gemima.

"I'm sorry, that was harsh. I get that you were trying to protect me, but I don't need protecting. Even if you feel otherwise."

"Ok."

"Good."

"Yeah."

"Also, we have one more thing left to do."

"What's that?"

"We're changing Pierre's password back to 'Nargles'."

"What?" he asked too shocked to really form proper sentences.

"Now, Scor, I think we all know why bad times had come upon us."

"Because I was a blistering prick?"

"Well that and also because the fact that we changed the password from 'Nargles' offended the Nargles, hence all the bad luck."

"Of course." He said, and finally, finally, laughed. He hoped quietly that things would work out between them. He hoped that his grandfather would make them an Unbreakable Promise about never turning into the blood-thirsty psychopath he seemed to have turned into. He hoped, more than anything, though, that Rose stayed safe and unhurt.

* * *

AUTHORS NOTE-

Phew, this chapter was so long. I feel that this chapter was darker than the previous ones, but I really wanted to experiment on that style of writing. Even though I say darker, it's really not all that _"blood and gore and death!"_ type dark, just on a comparative scale, I feel. Mainly because Rose's humour-making was pretty much at a bare minimum. Well I did classify it as 'drama' for a reason...*winks*

I think when I decided to write this story I knew what I wanted in the first and last chapters, the moving about in between is what I'm building it up. Also, writers' block kind of makes it difficult :(

What did you think of the chapter? Did you like it? Did you hate it? Were you somewhere in between? Tell me, I love hearing from you guys. You all know what that means, review! If that's not your thing, well, you can always favourite or follow! Seriously, it gives me great joy to see that happen.

Next chapter will be up...soonish?

It will be from Rose's point of view though.

Ok, what else? Ah yes!

I hope you have a nice day and if you're reading this at night, I hope you have a good day tomorrow.


	8. Chapter 8

The new chapter's up!

* * *

DISCLAIMER: I don't own Harry Potter, this would not be just fanfiction then would it?

* * *

**THE VISIT**

The week following what Alice, my best friend, called the Grand Reopening of our couple status, a.k.a that one time I made up with Scorpius, I found, things had gone back to normal. Alice had always strongly been against any and all interaction with Scorpius on my part. No she wasn't one of those psycho morons who believed his wrist bore the Dark Mark and at any given moment in time Scorpius would break into a synchronized song and dance musical about the awesomeness of his pure blood complete with backup dancers, cast and crew. She also didn't expect him to be an axe murderer. _Well, come to think of it, he could be! No girlfriend of an axe murderer is ever aware of the axe murderer status until Aurors and Unspeakables are breaking down the door to get the axe murderer who happens to be your boyfriend. _This is such a bad line of thought. Anyway, she had been anti-Scorpius more because of his previous man-whore activities. _Such a sweet best friend_. To be fair though, that advice, which I'm pretty sure held good to any sensible non-hormone driven girl, had been invalidated the moment Scorpius crossed six feet. Also again that moment when he'd taken up that crazy dare about not wearing a shirt to Quidditch for a week back in sixth year. _Good times._

Right now was also running really hard to join this list of aforementioned 'Good times'. I don't say so because Scorpius had just pledged to never wear a shirt again. _He should do that though, for the good of straight women and gay men worldwide. _He'd probably snort and say no. Damn. I say it was indeed a 'good time because finally, after hundreds of-no thousands of attempts to get Alice to have a sleepover at the 'paradise on earth' Head's Dorm, she had finally agreed. It might also have to do with the fact that Scorpius was currently captured by the amazingly well meaning Madam Pofrey because he got hit by a Quaffle during the match against Ravenclaw last week.

But focus on the happy stuff.

"So, you're telling me he has you and Al convinced that he broke up with you because he likes you?"

"Yes."

"I don't believe it."

"I know it sounds weird but he really was scared."

"If I was a promiscuous idiot who wanted to get back with one of the girls I'd been with, I'd say just that."

"Scorpius is _not_ a promiscuous idiot."

"Fine."

"Good."

There was an awkward pause for a moment because Alice knew she'd offended me by insulting Scorpius.

Then she came up with the best comeback ever.

"So, you want to know about my date with Luke?"

"Oh hell yes!"

And following that we had an hour long gossip session.

Scorpius was back a week later. In a blatant disregard for rules about the Heads Dorm, I held him a welcome back party which involved two things strictly forbidden by the rules. Friends. Firewhisky. Lots of both.

We'd always heard that the Headmistress apparently knew everything that was going on within the walls of Hogwarts and she had been known to make uncanny comments from time to time suggesting she knew more about the student parties than she let on. Maybe she'd been having her own Firewhisky party because we weren't called out on it. I probably got lucky though, and I had no plans to push it any further. Plus I had N.E.W.T.S. to prepare for.

The rest of November flew by faster than ever and even though me and Scorpius were going strong, we were really stressed by both impending N.E.W.T.S. and a family visit to his place.

I was nervous as hell. I knew his grandfather hated me already. I did not want to push it. Also, I'd told my parents I was going to a music festival with Alice featuring the Horrible Sisters which was an upcoming band. Alice would be going there with her boyfriend Luke and had a few qualms about lying to my family but agreed, after a bit of bribing. _Bye amazing muggle chocolate. How sadly we have parted._

Scorpius had also made for avoiding a huge showdown at the station by telling them he'd come home by himself. As we rode the car back to Malfoy Manor, I saw him distinctly more uncomfortable. _Maybe we should've told Albus, just in case they kill me and hide my body._ They won't kill me. Act your age Rose. _You got this. You're the queen of 'getting this'. _Sort of.

Faster than I'd expected, we were back at Malfoy manor. Holy mother of Merlin! It looked like a beautiful dark castle. If Hades lived in a castle, this would be his dark-and-dangerous type castle.

Scorpius' hand gripped mine tightly as we walked towards the gates.

"So here goes, yeah?" I said looking up at him.

He nodded tersely. Then just as I was sure he was going to lead me towards the gates, he stopped.

"Rose?"

"Yeah?"

"If he hurts you even a little, hurt him right back."

"Scorpius-" and before I could even continue, he leaned down and kissed me. Intensely. When he finally stopped his forehead leaning against mine as we let out a breath together, he said, "Please Rose, this has to stop."

For a moment, irrationally, I wondered if he'd break up with me again if this didn't go well. Suddenly, this entire fight seemed futile. What if his grandfather said no? He's more likely to say that anyway.

"Only if you promise we'll work through whatever comes after this together."

"Rose, I-"

"No, you can't break up with me over this ever again Scorpius." I said gripping his shirt.

"I-"

"No! If you fall out of love with me that is literally the only understandable reason for a break up. You do not get to break up with me based on your grandfather's ancient outdated beliefs. Particularly because you don't share them."

"I won't give you up for the world, Rose." He said looking down at me honestly. And then he kissed my forehead. Slowly, the panic in me subsided.

"Okay."

"Lets go then."

"You sure move fast."

"I try."

With that, we walked towards the gates, they opened before we reached them. We walked in and at the door to Malfoy Manor, stood Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy.

"Rose." nodded Mr. Malfoy, with a small smile. _Count the positives Rose._

Mrs. Malfoy looked amazing. At forty-something. _People should not be allowed to look this good_. Mr. Malfoy looked a lot like what I imagined Scorpius would look like at his age except, Scorpius probably looked better. His mom helped him out there.

Mrs. Malfoy beamed at me.

"Hello dear. We really apologize for my father in law's actions. You can call me Astoria."

"Hi." I said. Act cool.

"Hi mom, dad." He said looking at them. Mrs. Malfoy literally jumped down the stairs to hug him, while Mr. Malfoy smiled wider and patted his shoulder.

As we entered the living room, a huge commotion sounded.

"HOW DARE THEY!"

"Oh shit." I heard Scorpius say next to me.

"That isn't your grandfather is it?" I asked looking up at him hopefully

"It is." He said looking stonily at the stairs that were a source of the noise.

"Damn."

Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy immediately moved in front of me. Suddenly I wondered if the older Malfoy was actually deranged enough to attempt to kill me.

As Malfoy Sr. came down the stairs clutching his wand, I realized time had been kind to him. He didn't have too much trouble walking even at his age.

"DRACO! YOU DARE LET YOUR SACRILEGIOUS SON BRING THIS HALF BLOOD FILTH IN THIS HOUSE?"

"Father, calm down. Just hear me out for a moment." Reasoned Mr. Malfoy.

He clearly wasn't having any of that. Because he immediately aimed his wand at me.

"NO!" said Scorpius pulling me behind him. "Grandfather, if you attack her one more time, I will have you sent to Azkaban on charges of attacking her all these times and now based on anti-Muggle prejudice."

After Voldemort's downfall, anti-Muggle prejudice had become a criminal offence. It was a pretty serious charge on Scorpius' part. He stopped for a moment. Perhaps it was the mention of Azkaban or maybe it was Scorpius' tone that made him stop. Then apparently recovering his bearings, he said in a tone that left no room for argument.

"You will get her out of my manor now, Scorpius."

"Okay, and I shall leave with her."

"You will not."

"Watch me."

"No, wait!" I finally butted in, peeking from behind Scorpius. Time to put Plan Cray cray into action.

"Stay out of this Rose."

"No, you stay out of this, Scorpius, he's your family. Besides, he's upset because of me. Also, this is between him and me."

"Rose-"

"Please, Scorpius." His face showed defeat the moment he realized I was right. Before he could go back to defensive boyfriend mode, I began.

"Mr. Malfoy, I am Rose Weasley."

"I have nothing to say to you save for 'Leave'."

"I'm sorry, and don't take this the wrong way because I say this with all due respect, but I really didn't ask you for your opinion."

I heard him gasp. Here's your opportunity Rose.

"I'm not here because I find your company charming, and am quite frankly least interested in finding out if you prefer petunias to lilies or anything else of that sort. In fact, you are extremely inconsequential in the grand scheme of events. If you're wondering why I'll be happy to inform you. Your current standing in the Wizarding community, Mr. Malfoy is pretty crap. Besides your heaps of money as inheritance, you don't have much. Like it or not, people don't give a damn about the purity of your blood. Unlike you, your son is seen in better light because he made an effort to stop being like you. A move applauded by many ," I said turning to his dad, remembering the whole campaign about equality among all wizards he was funding before I continued. "Scorpius is barely regarded with prejudice because he has cleared himself of your name through his actions. You on the other hand have resorted to child-like attempts to spite me, which I found not only amusing but also, vaguely insulting. Let me also point out that I saw you hex me that time at the Quidditch match. Makes me wonder if you're really Slytherin at all. They're known to be cunning, not stupid enough to hex people in public. With the possibility of witnesses, namely, me and Scorpius, both of whom, let me assure you, are on my side. Did you bribe the hat to become Slytherin?"

The fury on his face was gratifying.

"Oh! Be careful, don't jump, you'll break a hip. I am so tired of this crap you've been putting both Scorpius and me through. Let me assure you I will not suffer any more offence from your part. In fact, if I even find a letter from you addressed to me which I find offensive in the least, I will make sure you are reported. This coupled with your prior charges should look very good right?"

"How dare you speak with me in that tone!"

"How original. If you have anything reasonable to add to this conversation besides those which begin with 'How dare you' I am willing to listen."

"You are threatening me?"

"Yes."

"In my own house."

"Actually, it is currently listed under 's name," I said pointing at Scorpius' father. Scorpius' grandfather had transferred all his property to his son when he turned twenty, a Malfoy tradition.

"Be quiet!"

"Will it make you treat me better?"

"Do not make demands where you hold no power."

"I kind of do."

"What power?"

"Your last heir."

"Scorpius?" he said looking confused.

"You see, you're pretty old, you are going to die sooner or later, none too soon if I may add, and your son is too smart to openly hold any prejudice against me and your grandson is in love with me. Your legacy will include me and Scorpius. You might as well give up the charade of holding power. Mainly because you don't have any, at all. Also, I'm the daughter of Hermione Granger Weasley and Ronald Bilius Weasley, two of the heroes of the war against Voldemort, I get secondhand social power."

The old man stared glibly at me. Well, pretty much everyone in the room was staring at me. Moving on to other matters I wasted no time in continuing.

"Scorpius?"

"Yes?"

"Do you want to spend Christmas with me?"

"Yes." He said still not really over the shock of my plan of intimidating his grandfather into behaving himself.

"Would you mind of Scorpius spent Christmas over at our place Astoria?"

"No…" she said still looking shocked.

"Then lets go Scorpius."

"Ok."

When we were finally out of the Manor, I let out a breath.

"Rose!"

"Yes?"

"You told me you had a plan!"

"The plan was to shock him into compliance."

"What are you talking about? He'll just try to kill you more now!"

"No, I intimidate him."

He paused as understanding flashed on his features.

"Oh." Then he smiled and said. "You probably do. Nobody has ever talked to him like that. Is this why you didn't tell me your amazing plan, because you thought I wouldn't let you?"

"Now, we're going to have to drag our luggage to the next floo station. It's a kilometre from here to the west." I said. A floo station was a relatively new form of public transport. It had a line of chimneys connected to the floo network.

"You wouldn't rather travel by the bus?"

"No, because Uncle Harry knows the conductor and I'd rather have this visit remain incognito." He smiled as he reached out to hold my hand.

"Why are your hands shaking?"

I looked down at my hands. They were shaking.

"I-uh…" I was scared. I'd been scared the moment I'd seen his grandfather. I'd been annoyed as hell by that but the pain after falling off the broom was still fresh in my mind. I'd run with the fake boisterous and brave set up but the moment Scorpius had pulled me behind him, I had almost lost all will to argue with the deranged man.

"It's cold."

"Oh, Rose," he whispered before pulling me to him, his warm large hands engulfing both of mine. "You were scared aren't you?"

"No."

"It's my grandfather isn't it? Rose I wish you'd told me"

"I didn't because I didn't want you to get worried and let him know I was faking bravery. With only one person to mess up a plan, rather than two, I thought, it would be better."

"I'm so sorry you had to do that alone."

"I'm sorry I insulted your grandfather."

"He deserved it."

Finally, the panic and fear began to subside. I was safe. I had survived this. It had taken countless hours of going through muggle psychiatry books to figure out the best way to figure out a truce with his grandfather and the solution I had found was a difficult one. Silently, as relief wracked through my body, I began to cry.

Scorpius' hands left mine to brush the tears off my face. I felt like such an idiot as I looked down, trying to move away from him and wipe the tears off my face. His arms pulled me back and I welcomed the warmth his body provided.

"It's going to be okay now." He said, his hand moving back and forth against my back.

"Yeah."

"I love you."

I smiled against his cloak. He probably saw, because, he calmed down. Finally.

"Lets go to your place."

"We actually aren't going home."

"What?"

"How do you feel about the HorribleSisters?"

"The band?"

"No, Petunia Parkinson and her twin sister, they're horrible, they're sisters, they fit the bill don't they?" I said, with sarcasm clear in my voice.

"I'm glad you're back to your usual self. So why are we discussing bands out in the cold or possibly annoying classmates."

"Because we're going to a music festival."

"What?"

"A music fes-"

"It was more of a 'what the hell are you thinking Rose' what rather than a 'what did you just say' what, Rose."

"My mistake. I have two tickets. Alice got them for me. She's already there and her tent has two rooms. Well, she's going to be rooming with Luke so, do you want to go to a music festival with me or do you want to be hunted by my family?"

"I'll choose the former, thanks."

"I thought so."

With a levitation charm, we lifted our luggage off of the ground and began walking down the road to the floo station.

* * *

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

Okay, I know I didn't upload in forever but, I had results just yesterday. Spare me some mercy from within the depths of your hearts won't you guys? I'll give you an extra scene at the end to make up for it? How about now? Forgiveness obtained! Achievement Unlocked? It's going to be full speed ahead now on.

Phew! this chapter was annoying to write. Mainly because the whole monologue where Rose goes on and on about how shit the pureblood belief about their superiority took time to perfect. However, I think it was necessary. This story is nearly over. There's probably going to be two or three more chapters next and an epilogue.

Review! please review! Press that button and tell me qhat you felt about this. It makes me extremely happy. Like soooooo happy! In case that's not your thing, you can always follow and favourite my story, I like that a lot too.

Done? Okay, here's the extra scene.

* * *

After we attended at least seven concerts back to back, at five in the morning, ridiculously drunk and tired, Scorpius and I walked to our room in the tent. It was grey. The sad kind.

"Hey Scorpius."

"Yeah?"

"This fabric has nothing on your eyes!"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean your eyes are like, two hundred and seventy three percent prettier than the fabric."

"I think it's two hundred and seventy eight at least."

"You're crap with percentages then!"

"I'm amazing with percentages."

"But I make better pancakes."

"Yeah and you look great in an apron too."

"And you...you look great without a shirt."

"I should take my shirt off."

"You should."

As he struggled to take his shirt off, I decided the best thing to do would be to held. So I moved closer intending to help him out, not putting down the bottle of firewhisky, was this our second, third...? I tripped over some tablecloth or something spilling firewhisky on both of us. Onto Scorpius, who now, had relieved himself of the shirt.

"You're excited."

"I am excited."

"Your shirt's wet."

"I'll take it off." After about fifteen minutes of struggling to take my shirt off, I finally succeded.

A familiar lurching in my vision alerted me of what was going to happen.

And then I passed out.

When I woke up the next morning with a headache that rivaled what a sledgehammer to the head must feel like and blinding light, and absolutely no memory of anything after the third concert. Why did we never learn anything from the last time we got drunk. _Because you got lots of action after!_ Go the hell away!

Did I get the Hangover potion? No!_ Hades have mercy!_ I'd forgotten.

I rolled over into something hard. Cussing I cracked an eye open and realized I'd crashed into a very shirtless Scorpius. Speaking of shirtless, I was missing mine too. I felt my bra clasp which was securely on. Ok, so things hadn't gotten that bad. I was hit with a sense of déjà vu from last time. My head however, reminded me that the hangover I had was also, very much real.

So, I just reached for his shirt, pulled it on inspite of the excruciating pain of the process, because there was no way I was putting up with the awkwardness of our mutual shirtlessness. Then I slowly rolled over to Scorpius who groaned as he got up when I collided with him, cracked an eye open and saw me there and simply put an arm around me to pull me closer and promptly shut his eyes again. Wise guy, this Scorpius. I curled into him and did the same.

* * *

There, hungover Scorrose!


End file.
